In recent years, cocaine trafficking between French Guiana and France has greatly intensified, to the point of representing 15 to 20% of entries available in France. Every day, around 8 to 10 cocaine transporters – “mules” – coming from Guyana land in Paris airports and redistribute the drug towards the secondary towns that crisscross France. This creates a new geography of drugs in France: transporters are players in this trafficking on a national scale and supply more or less structured criminal networks. Cocaine flows circulate from the production zone in Colombia via French Guiana, a rebound zone, to mainland France, an open door to Europe. What are the different stages and routes of carriers as well as the geographical, social and cultural specificities of this traffic? How can we explain that Bushinengués, Latvians, Amerindians, mainland French and Colombians all decide to attempt the “journey” loaded with cocaine? What makes this original route, straddling Latin America and Europe, so interesting and attractive?
France
