France's prison watchdog flags unknown death toll and high suicide rate in detention

The Contrôleure générale des lieux de privation de liberté issued two separate opinions in the Journal officiel, condemning the opacity surrounding mortality figures in French detention settings. It pointed out that neither the total number of deaths nor detailed breakdowns are reliably recorded or disclosed, partly due to the Ministry of Health’s inability to report deaths occurring during or after involuntary hospitalization.

The Ministry of Justice reported 275 deaths in 2025, of which 136 were suicides, and the Council of Europe’s SPACE study found France’s prison suicide rate at 19.4 per 10,000 inmates, markedly higher than the European median of 7.3. Between 2022 and April 2026, the CGLPL documented 24 inmates killed by other inmates in overcrowded prisons. Additional concerns include frequent cancellation of scheduled medical extractions because of escort shortages and instances of patients dying in isolation without autopsies, prompting the watchdog to call for immediate reforms and full public disclosure of death data.