The overcrowding crisis in France's prisons is not just limited to prisoners it seems.
An inmate at a prison in northern France has caught on camera what appears to be pretty solid evidence of a rat infestation. And he's using it to take the prison to court.
The video below was reportedly shot at Sequedin prison in the Nord department in northern France.
It features various clips of scores of rats clambering over each other to get food in what appears to be the prison grounds.
The inmate's lawyer Olivier Cardon denounced the “deplorable conditions” of his client.
“My client eats with rats in his cell,” said the lawyer. “He takes his shower with rats. The water in his shower stinks because there are rats in the pipes. Rats also scurry around the courtyard where my client walks,” he added.
The French-based International Prisons Observatory (OIP) backed its complaint with statements from inmates at Fresnes prison, 15 kilometres (nine miles) south of Paris.
“We are infested with bedbugs, bitten every night on the face, on the neck, the shoulders, the back, the legs and the arms,” said one inmate, in documents seen by AFP.
Another prisoner described the stench of dead rats, while another said he had to share his cell with up to 300 cockroaches.
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