ORLEANS, France/ROME/BRUSSELS šC On a day when temperatures were soaring past 37 degrees Celsius outside, the prisoner sat in his cell with wet towels around his window bars, trying to explain to the visiting politician how it felt to be locked up in France during a heat wave.
Most days, 29-year-old Manu stayed on his bed, trying to move as little as possible. ¡°You have to deal with it mentally,¡± he said in one of France¡¯s newer jails ¡ª Orleans-Saran opened in 2014.
Reporters accompanied that July visit and spoke to more than 40 people in France, Italy and ?Belgium ¡ª inmates, activists, prison directors, doctors, union reps ¡ª many of whom described a crisis in jails where this summer¡¯s heat waves have exposed underlying problems with overcrowding and aging facilities.
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