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Episode details

World Service,24 Oct 2013,11 mins

Available for over a year

Overcrowding is such a big problem in France's prisons, that sometimes there are three men to a cell of three metres by three metres. Christian Fraser reports on the dilemma this causes the French government: reducing the prison population and save money to help meet budget cuts at the same time, or sail with the prevailing political wind that demands tougher prison sentences, not softer ones. It's 50 years since the BBC opened its first Moscow bureau in what was then the Soviet Union. The first correspondent there was Erik de Mauny. Steve Rosenberg finds that many of the things de Mauny said in his despatches then still ring true today. Presenter: Pascale Harter Producer: Arlene Gregorius Picture Credit: BBC

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