The administrative court of Rouen (in the Normandy region) found the French state liable for having failed to provide the prison conditions required for detainees to preserve their dignity. The court awarded the 38 claimants, who numbered former and current detainees of the prison of Rouen, sums ranging from 350 to 17.500 Euros. The judges underlined the fact that although the prison cells’ surface was only 10 to 13 square meters they held up to three prisoners at a time ; they also noted that the toilets lacked both an adequate ventilation system and privacy. They considered that these conditions did not meet standards of hygiene and cleanliness. The Justice ministry had called upon the court to dismiss the lawsuits, arguing that the claimants had not established that their prejudice was personal, direct and certain, the conditions for a successful compensation claim. Moreover, it stated that the prison authorities were facing a critical situation since their means were stretched by the overflow of detainees they were required to accommodate. The Rouen prison was built to house 650 prisoners, but counts 750 to 800 of them.

The overpopulation of prisons is a longstanding problem in France, in response to which the State Secretary to the minister of Justice, Jean-Marie Bockel [profile, in French], announced [Agenda report] in March that the government would expand its open prison policy in the years to come. This evolution is the result of growing public pressure to reform the prison system, and of the regular condemnation of the French state by national courts and by the ECHR for the inhuman conditions prevalent in its prisons.