France's prison population has reached an all-time high, prison authorities said Wednesday, amid the center-right government's two-year-old crackdown on crime.

French jails now house just over 61,000 inmates, 26 percent above capacity. The previous record of 60,960 dated to July 1 last year, when the 60,000 mark was surpassed for the first time since France's liberation from Nazi occupation in 1944.
.
In January, the Council of Europe's anti-torture committee criticized overpopulation in French jails, saying it could lead to conditions that suggested "inhuman and degrading treatment."