French Member Parliaments have voted in favour of enforcing shorter prison sentences for minor criminal offences – reopening the prospect of judges handing down prison terms of a month, or even less.

A bill – proposed by MP Loïc Kervran and supported by the centre-right Horizons, MoDem and the right-wing Les Républicains parties, as well as far-right Rassemblement national and Union des Droites pour la République – was adopted by 63 votes to 42.

The text revises several provisions of previous justice reforms aimed at relieving prison overcrowding, including the 2019 reform, and reintroduces the prospect of judges handing down jail terms of less than one month.

It repeals the principle that a sentence of six months or less must be subject to adjustments, such as wearing an electronic tag, unless the judge gives a reasoned decision.

In other words, incarceration would once again become the rule for numerous relatively minor offences rather than the exception. Conversely, the text makes it possible to adjust sentences of up to two years' imprisonment, compared with one year at present.

While the bill received partial support from centrist groups and the far-right National Rally party, left-wing parties collectively opposed the legislation, expressing concerns about the return of punitive policies that lack genuine structural solutions.

The bill's future will be determined in the upcoming legislative debates.