“Tipping point” in the face of drug trafficking, “Mexicanization” of the country: Bruno Retailleau promised Friday in Rennes a long and merciless “war” against drug trafficking, notably through a legislative text at the start of 2025.
“Drug traffickers are everywhere, in urban areas, but also, I have just seen it, in rural areas. They no longer have limits. And we are at a tipping point, really,” reiterated the Minister of Interior during a press point after a visit to Rennes, and the day after a bloody shooting in Poitiers where a 15-year-old teenager is between life and death.
To fight against drug trafficking, “either there is a general mobilization for this great fight which will take years, and we will win it, or there is the Mexicanization of the country”, he warned.
This visit to the Breton capital comes a week after a 5-year-old child was seriously injured by bullets during a settling of scores linked to drug trafficking in the Maurepas district, where the minister went in early afternoon.
The child was injured by two bullets in the head during a chase in Pacé near Rennes last Saturday, while the car his father was driving was chased by hooded men, a few hours after a first shooting in the neighborhood.
The father, originally from Maurepas, is himself a “drug trafficker” and his son is still between life and death, according to the minister.
The CRS 82, specializing in urban violence, was deployed on Sunday in this hotbed of drug trafficking in Rennes, the scene of several shootings since the start of the year.
“As of this evening (CRS) 40 arrives, they will take turns” and will stay “until we have regained tranquility” in this neighborhood, explained Mr. Retailleau.
Reinforcements of field police officers will also be sent to Maurepas to be able to patrol 7 days a week, compared to 6 days a week currently. Announcements immediately welcomed by the mayor of Rennes Nathalie Appéré, in a press release.
-New communication campaign-
Beyond the security response, the minister also reaffirmed his determination to “break the ecosystem” of drug trafficking, in particular by attacking consumers and the “culture of trivialization” of drugs.
The government, he announced, will launch a very “cash” communications campaign to “make consumers face their responsibilities”. “When we smoke, when we take coke, we participate in a system, in a whole chain which sows death throughout France.”
“I can also see, on French territory, enclaves, mini-states, narco-enclaves which are in the process of being formed. I can clearly see, in the reports given to me, that “expand the web of corruption which threatens our sovereignty”, he said earlier during an exchange with a resident of Maurepas.
The minister once again insisted on his wish that the government take up, and strengthen, the proposals of the senatorial commission of inquiry against drug trafficking.
He recalled that a bill to this effect was on the Senate's desk and hoped that it would be examined “as quickly as possible”, “at the beginning of the year at the latest”.
In the morning, the minister announced on BFMTV a new shooting, this time in Poitiers on Thursday evening,
“It started with a shooting in front of a restaurant and ended with a brawl between rival gangs which involved several hundred people.”
According to the first elements of the investigation, there were less than a hundred people involved, between “40 to 60”, indicated a police source.
During this shooting, five people were injured, several seriously. According to a police source, a 15-year-old teenager was shot in the head and was between life and death.
Near Valencia, a man in his twenties was also between life and death after being shot in the head during the night from Thursday to Friday during a shooting in front of a nightclub. Facts linked to drug trafficking, according to the police.
Another, aged 18, was also shot and killed, also in Valencia, on Friday afternoon in a neighborhood near the city center.
Next Friday, Bruno Retailleau must go with his colleague from Justice Didier Migaud to Marseille where the settling of scores between drug traffickers is particularly murderous and sordid, with the involvement of young people aged 14-15 as hired killers.
The two ministers must announce several measures together.
