French prisons near 90,000 inmates in record crowding

French prisons held 89,668 inmates on August 1, a new high that pushed occupancy to a record 141.6 percent, justice ministry data showed Tuesday.

The prison system had capacity for only around 63,300 people in France, a country of 69 million.

Overcrowding forced 7,956 detained people to sleep on mattresses on the floor, up 43.5 percent from the same time last year. In detention centres holding people awaiting trial or serving shorter sentences, occupancy stood at 175 percent.

The Council of Europe said in May that France and Turkey had the most overcrowded prisons in Europe. UN torture-prevention experts, after a visit the same month, urged France to address "serious" overcrowding and said conditions violated detainees' rights and could amount to "inhumane or degrading" treatment.

Justice Minister Gerald Darmanin said in early January that he wanted to tackle overcrowding by building more prisons. His ministry plans 3,000 additional places in modular prisons, with half due to be operational by 2027.

Under a separate plan launched in 2018, fewer than a third of 15,000 planned prison places have been delivered.