France is considering making convicted criminals pay rent to sit in prison

Published April 29, 2025 | By NewsJive.com

France has been grappling with major social and economic problems for decades, which have only worsened over time, not least due to mass immigration, which has led to an increasing crime rate in the country, not least violent crimes.

The increasing crime rates have also led to significant challenges for the country in managing the growing costs for taxpayers to run prisons that house more and more dangerous inmates.

Now, the country’s Minister of Justice, Gérald Darmanin, has come up with the idea that the financial burden could perhaps be shifted to the criminals who have been sentenced to prison, and make them pay the bill.

Darmanin said on Monday to TF1 that he planned to change the law, since the prisons costs the French state 4 billion euro per year. He said that, “until 2003, prisoners contributed to the cost of their incarceration” and added that, “just as there is a fixed hospital charge, there was a fixed prison attendance charge”.

Darmanin announcement comes after a increased series of violent attacks by inmates, targeting prison guards and other prison employees across France in April.

The most recent statistics on the inmate population in France, released on April 1, show that 81,600 individuals are currently in prison. This number significantly exceeds the official capacity of France’s prisons, which is set at 62,363.

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