Paris — France will build thousands of jail cells and use electronic tagging more widely under President Emmanuel Macron’s reforms to remedy some of Europe’s worst prison overcrowding and protests by wardens over violence. France’s prison population of 69,000 is the fifth-largest in Europe, after Russia, Turkey, Poland and Britain, World Prison Brief data compiled by a London university shows. But French jails are more overcrowded than those in Britain, with an average 115 inmates per 100 places. In some Paris jails, inmates are reportedly sleeping on floors with three or more prisoners squeezed into a cell. The changes, which were scheduled to be formally presented by Macron during a visit to southeast France on Tuesday, follow a rash of attacks by inmates that triggered protests by guards, who said violence was spinning out of control. The protests calmed when the government offered €30m for better training and pay, as well as moves to isolate Islamist militants from other prisone...
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