French prison staff doubt renting cells abroad will solve overcrowding

Euronews

22-05-2025

French authorities are exploring a radical option to tackle severe overcrowding in the country's prisons: renting cells in other European countries.
But while the idea, floated by French President Emmanuel Macron in a recent televised interview with national broadcaster TF1, has sparked some interest, it's also attracted criticism from some in the prisons system who see logistical, legal and ethical challenges.
"Holland rented out its prison beds to Belgium with its own staff but under Belgian law. The Dutch personnel had to be trained to understand how things worked in Belgian prisons," explained Dominique Simmonot, France's Controller-General for Places of Deprivation of Liberty, an independent public body in charge of controlling the country's prisons.
"And secondly, family visits were extremely complicated due to visa requirements and the distance," Simmonot added.
"In the end, Belgium abandoned the project, so I see no reason to repeat the experiment."
With more than 82,900 inmates and just 62,000 prison cells, France is rapidly running out of space.
It's also the third-worst performer in Europe for prison overcrowding, behind Cyprus and Romania, according to a study by the Council of Europe published last year.
Annabelle Bouchet, Deputy Secretary General of the SNEPAP-FSU prison staff union and a long-serving probation officer, also doesn't believe the idea is realistic.
"There are some very concrete elements that, in my opinion, make it very, very, very difficult to implement such an idea," Bouchet told Euronews.
"Firstly, from a budgetary point of view, going abroad to rent premises has a cost. And today, the state of French public finances is such that budget cuts have to be made everywhere. I don't see how it could be profitable to send convicts to another facility outside our borders," she pointed out.
As a probation officer, Bouchet also mentioned the potential strain on reintegration, warning that placing prisoners far from their families and support networks could affect their long-term rehabilitation.
"Deporting people who have been sentenced and incarcerated means they're far from their families, but it also means they're far from the employment areas and actors that will enable them to be reintegrated into society," she explained.
Earlier this year, French Justice Minister Gérald Darmanin suggested building modular prison units to house inmates serving shorter sentences.
Macron has also expressed interest in streamlining the construction of 5,000 new places using faster, lighter structures.
But according to those who work in the system, sending inmates abroad or building more units will not fix prison overcrowding.
Bouchet believes alternative sentencing and better mental health and addiction counselling could help reduce the prison population.
"Today, not all of the people who are sick and who commit offences because of their addiction or mental health issues should be in prison. We need to think of another solution because prison is not the answer to everything," she said.
France is not the first country to explore this option. Between 2010 and 2016, Belgium rented 680 prison places in the Dutch town of Tilburg.
In 2021, Denmark signed a 10-year, €210 million agreement to lease 300 cells in Kosovo.
And Estonia has expressed interest in renting out vacant space in its prisons to other countries, estimating potential annual revenue of €30 million.
While the Danish-Kosovan deal amounts to nearly €200 per inmate per day, France's daily cost per prisoner currently ranges from €100 to €250, depending on the type of facility, according to broadcaster TF1.
Belgium's previous partnership with the Netherlands amounted to €40 million annually, due in part to staffing costs.
A group of MEPs has called on the European Commission to freeze EU funding for Hungary with immediate effect because of alleged backsliding on rule of law by the government of Premier Viktor Orbán.
The letter, published on Tuesday, was addressed to European Commissioner for Budget Piotr Serafin and Commissioner for Democracy and Justice Michael McGrath and signed by 26 MEPs from five different political groups.
"We, 26 Members of the European Parliament, write to express our deep concern regarding recent developments in Hungary. We urge the European Commission to increase pressure on Viktor Orbán's government to cease violating EU values and EU laws by immediately suspending all EU funding for Hungary in line with the applicable legislation to protect the Union's financial interest," the letter said.
The letter recalls that the Commission is currently withholding €18 billion from Hungary through various mechanisms triggered in December 2022 primarily "due to widespread corruption" and "the government's serious breaches of the rule of law".
"Regrettably, since the decisions in December 2022, Hungary has not only failed to make meaningful progress toward meeting the stipulated conditions and/or milestones but has instead witnessed further alarming regressions," the letter said.
The letter cites four key issues, including direct government interference in the work of the Hungarian Integrity Authority, undermining the independence of the judiciary, resulting in a protest of the Hungarian Judges' Association, banning the Pride march in Budapest, and the approval of the "Defence of Sovereignty law".
The letter recalls that this law, adopted in 2023, enables the investigation of the usage of foreign funds to influence voters and is seen as a tool for deployment against government critics.
In addition to that law, the Hungarian parliament is currently debating a draft law that could see foreign-funded media and NGOs listed and fined.
The signatories of the letter cite the EU's Rule of Law Conditionality Mechanism as a means of cutting off funding in the case of such violations. This mechanism has previously been used against Hungary.
"Given the transversal and comprehensive nature of recent governmental attacks, it must now be even clearer that all EU funding to Hungary, across all budget lines, is significantly at risk. We therefore consider a freezing of all funds proportionate to the risk posed to the Union's financial interests," the MEPs write.
The signatories of the letter include lawmakers from the EPP group, S&D, Greens/EFA, Renew, and the Left, including some key MEPs such as Monika Hohlmeier and Jean-Marc Germain, co- rapporteurs on rule of law conditionality, Daniel Freund, the co-chair of the anti-corruption intergroup, Moritz Körner, a rule of law conditionality shadow rapporteur with the budget committee, Tineke Strik, a rapporteur on Hungary and Niclas Herbst, the chair of the Parliament's budgetary control committee.
Last weekend, tens of thousands protested in Budapest against the draft transparency law, which, according to the opposition, is a Russian style tool to silence critics. On Wednesday afternoon, the European Parliament held an urgent debate on the matter, where several MEPs urged the European Commission to take immediate action.
In his reply, Commissioner for Democracy and Justice Michael McGrath said the Commission was ready to defend the fundamental values and rights of the union, including through the further use of the Rule of Law Conditionality Mechanism to enable financial cuts.
"The Commission is considering its approach to the next Multiannual Financial Framework, and we had a further discussion on this matter in yesterday's meeting of the College of Commissioners. And this included consideration of the role of conditionality and respect for the rule of law in that regard."
Members of Hungary's ruling Fidesz party said in the European Parliament debate that maintaining sovereignty and limiting foreign interference in Hungarian politics was a matter of national interest. Hungarian MEP Csaba Dömötör accused Brussels of financing a network of leftist activists to intervene in politics.
"Whatever you say, what we have here has nothing to do with civil society. The civil society organises itself from the ground, but those activists were financed by the grand coalition from here, or with the aid of the Open Society or the USAID," Dömötör said.
The new transparency law in Hungary, announced as part of Orbán's self-styled "spring cleaning", might be approved by the Hungarian parliament in the coming weeks.