France vows to step up the fight against drugs after police vehicles were set on fire

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The French government vowed on Wednesday to step up the fight against drug-related crime after four police vehicles were torched outside a police station in an apparent revenge attack in response to a new crackdown.

The four vehicles were reduced to burnt-out wrecks outside the police station in the southern city of Cavaillon, where security forces are now carrying out a nationwide operation against drug crime.

Three police officers were present when a group of individuals passed by in the early morning hours, local authorities said. No one was injured.

The perpetrators have not yet been apprehended, but regional prosecutor Florence Galtier said that “all means would be used to arrest the perpetrators as quickly as possible.”

New French Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau, who has promised an uncompromising approach to restoring order since taking office, said he was sending his deputy Nicolas Daragon to the city, as well as a special unit of CRS anti-riot police.

“The state will not be intimidated and we will intensify our fight against drug trafficking and banditry,” he wrote on X.

“I will put the fight against organized crime at the center of my work because it represents an attack on our institutions,” he added.

The government under new Prime Minister Michel Barnier, appointed last month by President Emmanuel Macron, is raising serious concerns among French people about the way drug crime is crippling daily life in many parts of the country.

Marseille, France’s second-largest city but also one of the poorest, has been plagued by drug-related violence that last week saw a 15-year-old boy “stabbed 50 times” and burned alive, and a 36-year-old delivery man shot dead. shot dead by a 14 year old.

In a new development, a group of hooded individuals claiming to be the infamous drug cartel DZ Mafia have posted a wildly unusual video on social media denying any link to the two murders in Marseille, which caused shock across the country.

In the video, a man dressed in black and wearing a hood speaks in front of a lectern that reads “DZ Mafia”, surrounded by about fifteen men dressed similarly.

In a distorted voice, the man refuted “the involvement of this organization in the murder of a 15-year-old teenager and a driver committed between October 2 and 4, 2024 in Marseille,” the Marseille prosecutor’s office said.

It was not possible to authenticate the video. But this style of communication is completely new in France in the drug world, with such videos usually associated with banned extremist groups.

French police said earlier Wednesday that they had also arrested a leading member of the so-called Mocro Mafia, a cocaine trafficking gang that operates mainly from Belgium and the Netherlands.

The suspect, approximately thirty years old and a Moroccan citizen, has been the target of an international arrest warrant issued by the Netherlands.

The organization with the Dutch-language nickname Mocro Mafia – a reference to the group’s Moroccan origins – is suspected of distributing cocaine and synthetic drugs throughout Europe from its bases in the Netherlands and Belgium, and of having close ties to the Latin American drug . trade.

sm-sjw/cw