"Our prisons are falling apart as fast as we can repair them. Some establishments simply shouldn't exist," Carrier said.
With a huge gap in state finances, building extra prisons is far down the government's list of priorities. Two new jails opened this year -- but only to replace ones that are closing.
False promises
In January 2000, Veronique Vasseur caused an uproar with a book recounting her experiences as chief doctor at La Sante -- a notoriously grim maximum security detention center in Paris.
She wrote of inmates so depressed they swallowed rat poison, drain cleaner and even forks. Beds were ridden with lice, vermin were rampant and skin diseases rife. Drugs were everywhere.
Three years on, she says reforms debated by the previous government to improve conditions in jails have come to nothing.
"Out of 30 emergency measures recommended three years ago by parliamentarians, practically nothing has been done. Everything I did was in vain," Vasseur told the daily Le Parisien.
Inmates shower three times a week, but wear the same clothes for a week or more. Up to 40 percent have mental problems and many cut themselves or abuse cellmates. Poor medical support means such problems often go unnoticed, the OIP said.
Diseases including tuberculosis, hepatitis C and HIV and pests such as cockroaches and rats are still are problem.
"Each day is a doomed battle against noise, filth, smells, suffocation and thus hate of others and oneself," the OIP said.
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