Sociology Professor Farhad Khosrokhavar (a leading expert who has studied French prisons extensively, including in sensitive urban areas) estimates Muslims comprise roughly 40%-50% of the overall prison population nationally, with higher shares (often 50–70%+) in prisons in the Paris region or other high-immigration urban areas, these are estimates, because the French government does not record these things. The closest thing to a hard number is an older number that in 2013, about 27% of all French inmates registered for Ramadan meals (18,300 out of 67,700 prisoners), though researchers say many Muslim inmates do not formally register.
IFOP survey (November 2025): 7% of the adult French population identifies as Muslim (up from 0.5% in 1985, 4% in 2009, and 5.5% in 2016). This is based on a large, representative sample and positions Islam as France’s second-largest religion after Catholicism. There are other estimates that put the percent of the population at 8% to 9.5%.
This would imply that about 5% of the population would be Muslim in 2013, but if 27% of French inmates, that implies inmates were 5.4 times their share of the population. If today, 40% of inmates are Muslim and 7% of their population, that is still overrepresented by 5.7 times. Even if we take the highest percentage of the population that is Muslim at 9.5% and the lowest estimated share of the prison population at 40%, Muslims are still overestimate as a share of inmates at 4.2 times.
Paris Region (Île-de-France / Greater Paris Metropolitan Area) has about 14% to 16% of the population as Muslim, so the inmate population that is Muslim in that area is at least 3.125 times their share of the general population.
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