New Prison Planned for Nîmes to Address Severe Overcrowding
The French Justice Minister, Gérald Darmanin, confirmed Friday evening the construction of a new prison in Nîmes, in the Gard department, with a planned completion date of 2029-2030. The facility will have a capacity of 700 places.
Darmanin stated the decision comes in response to particularly high levels of prison overcrowding in the Gard department and more broadly across southern France. According to a ministry communiqué, the new prison is part of a national program to create 15,000 new prison spaces.
The Nîmes prison currently operates at over 230% capacity, making it one of the most overcrowded facilities in France. This situation has led to increasingly difficult conditions for both inmates and staff.
The announcement represents a confirmation of plans that have been under discussion for some time. In April 2021, then-Prime Minister Jean Castex already announced the project. Negotiations have been ongoing, and the project had previously been described as a long-term aspiration.
A plot of land in Générac has already been reserved for the construction.
An extension adding 150 places was completed in August 2025, but Minister Darmanin acknowledged that this addition “is not enough to absorb the existing overcrowding.”
The conditions within the existing Nîmes prison have been described as “terrible” and “insane” by both personnel and detainees. A report from France24 detailed the extreme overcrowding, with inmates often forced to sleep on mattresses on the floor due to a lack of available beds. One young female detainee described the cramped conditions, stating, “The mattress, we only pull it out at night, otherwise we can’t move around. There are days when we suffocate, when it’s hot it’s horrible.”
In the men’s section, the majority of cells designed for two inmates are currently occupied by far more. A prison official noted, “Here we count in mattresses” and “there we are reaching peaks.”
The construction of the new facility is intended to alleviate the pressure on the existing prison and improve conditions for all those housed within it. The project also aims to address the broader issue of prison overcrowding in the south of France, a problem that has been exacerbated by a growing prison population.
The new prison is being built near a Natura 2000 site, “Costières nîmoises,” requiring careful consideration of ecological sensitivities. The project also includes plans for a future economic activity zone adjacent to the prison, aiming to contribute to local economic development.
Public consultation regarding the project took place from December 2022 to January 2023, with a further phase from March 22 to April 12, 2023. A public inquiry was conducted in September 2024, and the official decree of public utility is expected in the first half of 2025. The selection of a design-build consortium was launched in September 2023, with a notification planned for the second quarter of 2025.
The need to update the local urban planning documents (PLU) of Nîmes and the Territorial Coherence Scheme (SCoT) Sud Gard was identified as necessary to enable the project’s realization. An initial phase of public consultation was held from December 6, 2021, to January 28, 2022, to inform stakeholders about the required adjustments to the urban planning documents.
