Two calls for tenders by June to build 3.000 modular prison places

"I have decided to launch two calls for tenders, one for the end of May, the other for the beginning of June," to build "3.000 additional prison places in a few months," declared the Minister of Justice following a visit to a Bouygues manufacturing site in Crépy-en-Valois, in the Oise department.

The first call for tenders will concern semi-open prisons, where inmates spend the night and go out during the day to work, attend training, or attend classes. The second will aim to build prisons for people serving short sentences, he said.

"These are real prisons, but built in factories like our English friends did, like our German friends did, which allows us to save a lot of time but also money," stressed the minister, who has traveled to Great Britain and Germany in recent weeks to visit prisons of this type.

The first site to host such a structure "will be in Troyes in the Aube region," with a 50-place prison.

"Around fifteen sites" will be dedicated to semi-open prisons, and around ten others for short-term prisons.

France continues to break record prison overcrowding month after month: as of March 1, 82.152 people were being held in French prisons, for a total of 62.539 operational places. More than 4.850 inmates were sleeping on mattresses on the floor.

While the overall density was 131,7% on March 1, it stood at 159,9% in remand centers, where prisoners awaiting trial, therefore presumed innocent, and those sentenced to short terms, are incarcerated.