Mexico or Marseille? France is in the process of “Mexicanization”, launched the Minister of the Interior, Bruno Retailleau, a few days ago, referring to the ultraviolence of the cartels in Central and South America. “A Mexicanization, no, a Marseilleization, yes,” corrects a senior Breton official, in reference to the multiplication of score-settling throughout the territory. In Brittany, Nantes and now Rennes are the frightening illustration of this. The Breton capital even holds the national “record”, excluding attacks, for the longest shooting with weapons of war: 67 minutes, on March 10!
“Marseille barbecue” near Morlaix, shootings in Rennes
The phenomenon, linked to rivalries between drug traffickers, has already hit Brest, Lorient and even Morlaix recently. Even the countryside is no longer spared. Is it a variation of the “Marseille barbecue”, this procedure consisting of burning a body in a car to erase all traces of a crime and to frighten those who might speak? On May 13, 2021, very close to Morlaix, in Taulé (2,853 inhabitants), in a case that has not yet been clarified, a 29-year-old local trafficker, shot in the head, was discovered burned in his burned car.
In Lorient, the Marseille specter appeared in the guise of a young foreign dealer, suspected of the murder of a resident, in the Kervénanec district, in September 2023. Still on the run, the suspect initially left the Marseille city to escape to a revenge linked to a drug debt, before being enlisted in Angers, then in Nantes, and finally in Lorient when a network took the place of the local one which had just fallen.
“No Marseille gang in Brittany”
It is also in Lorient that a young recruiter of killers claiming to be linked to the DZ Mafia, one of the gangs involved in the bloody settling of scores in Marseille, claims to have sent a team “to recover a mache deal point (Editor's note : of cocaine)”. His two recruits had to “shoot, cross and put two or three bullets in the manager’s leg”, he explains in a report which Le Télégramme has seen.
Should we see in these tragic episodes the hand of gangs from Marseille who are trying to take new market shares in Brittany? “We have not detected any in the region,” says a judicial source, categorically.
In Rennes, “DZ Mafia” tags on the city walls recently set social networks alight. “Some dealers were able to work in Marseille for this group,” another judicial source recently told Télégramme. They maintain connections and make it widely known. This maintains their personal legend. But the DZ Mafia is not trying to get its hands on Rennes. She has no desire. »
“The Marseille teams currently have other priorities to manage, and other cities to focus on locally before coming to the end of the country, in Brittany! », Continues Jérôme Pierrat, author of several documentaries and books on organized crime, particularly in Marseille. This does not prevent, again, those “excluded from the Marseille market”, judging the competition too intense and muscular locally, from being tempted to go and see if the grass is not greener here. “All you need is a friend there, or a family member,” adds Jérôme Pierrat. Some people come there simply to go green. This was, it seems, the case of this member of the “DZ Mafia” arrested on March 11 near Rennes, in Montgermont. The young man, hidden with a friend, was wanted in connection with an attempted homicide in 2023 on a Marseille competitor who had taken refuge in Spain.
Explosive cocktail made in Marseille
There are no Marseille gangs attacking Breton deal points. But there is indeed a Marseille-style culture of ultraviolence, which has spread throughout the country. Boosted by the ultramobility of the little hands of drug trafficking, interchangeable, particularly designed to partition trafficking and preserve the integrity of networks.
The multiplication of judicial stay bans, favored by certain courts to get rid of local dealers, may have contributed to this turnover of temporary dealers, feverish in unfamiliar territory, but sometimes experienced in the handling of weapons and equipped accordingly.
“These drug traffickers are increasingly young,” notes a specialist investigator. They have less experience, and less composure. » This rejuvenation, linked to “easier access to firearms”, to “an uninhibited use of violence” would be the other ingredients of the explosive Marseille cocktail.
“Even six or seven years ago, even in major cities, we did not find weapons in drug cases,” reports the same police officer. It has become a mode of communication, of negotiation. There is no one-upmanship, but barriers are falling and what traffickers prohibited yesterday is becoming commonplace, becoming the norm. »
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