French Justice Minister Jean-Jacques Urvoas on Tuesday announced a plan to build up to 16,000 new jail cells by 2025 to tackle prison overcrowding.

During a visit to Fresnes jail in Val d'Oise, the French minister unveiled a "precise, concrete and ambitious project" aimed at "ending prisons overcrowding and guaranteeing individual cells."

Overcrowded prisons are considered a breeding ground for radicalization and militants being recruited into terrorist groups.

"We cannot wait more. We want to reach 80 percent of individual cells to be able to respect inmate dignity and also to prevent a swing to fanaticism," he said.

Urvoas said the plan was to build between 10,300 and 16,143 new cells by 2025 with 3,900 being constructed in 2017 in Ile de France, Toulouse, southern France and the Alpes Provence, Cote d'Azur region where "needs are urgent and crucial."

The project will cost 1.1 billion euros (1.228 billion U.S. dollars), according to the minister.

France has 187 prisons whose occupancy rate stands at 138 percent.

Source : XINHUA