The terrible state of French prisons is well known, even though it's not a frequent topic of discussion. The terrible state for the rights of the accused is les

The terrible state of French prisons is well known, even though it's not a frequent topic of discussion. The terrible state for the rights of the accused is less well known, IMO. It's improved significantly over the past few decades thanks to numerous damning ECHR decisions, but very slowly and is still problematic. At least the accused now have access to a lawyer early in the process; this was not even common just 20 years ago despite it being a rather clear requirements to comply with a number of human rights supposedly enshrined in the constitution. Having said that, said rights are less of an issue than in the US simply because we don't jail as many people, by far. It's shocking how easy it is to end up in jail for the average person in the US. Just failing to pay a ticket you didn't even know you ever got because it was ripped off from your car and the court summons was served to the wrong person can land you in jail in the US, but that doesn't happen in France.