Place des Lices, in Rennes, night of October 4 to 5. Three men attack another with a broken bottle in the face. The victim comes out with 16 days of ITT. 24 hours later, two of them also shot a young person, a short distance from here, rue de la soif. The affair sets the city in turmoil: for the first time, the Breton capital is hit right in the heart by the firearms of drug traffickers, until now reserved for sensitive neighborhoods.
The three men are now sleeping in prison. They were placed in pre-trial detention until their trial for the first attack, scheduled for early 2025. Justice is far from having finished with them. “The charges attributed to them remain to be verified and substantiated,” whispers a wise observer. In addition to the attempted murder in the center of Rennes, they are also suspected of being involved in a bloody chase on October 26. It resulted in two bullets in the head of a five-year-old child. First collateral victim of drug trafficking in Rennes. An affair with national echo, which provoked the trip to the Breton capital of the Minister of the Interior Bruno Retailleau.
One war hides another
Beyond these three men, the police and gendarmerie still have to question numerous “objectives”. In their sights? The gangs that have been setting Maurepas on fire since mid-summer. In the space of three months, this sensitive district of Rennes was the scene of around ten shootings. With a worrying peak of ultraviolence in October. Behind this macabre succession of news items are in reality not one but two distinct territorial wars.
The first takes place between the end of July and mid-September. A 23-year-old young man of Kosovar origin has just been released from prison, where he was serving a two-year sentence for drug trafficking. Back in the neighborhood where he grew up, he fully intends to take back “his” land, the deal point in the Marbaudais sector. In his absence, another trafficker, nicknamed “the Parisian”, got his hands on this highly lucrative market.
The new boss does not intend to let himself be trampled. To defend his business and maintain ground, he hires, via social networks, dozens of young boys, often from the Mahorese or Comorian communities. We meet them here and there, dressed in black and hooded. The war rages: it puts the neighborhood under tension for many weeks. Until the Kosovar was arrested by the police. Back to the prison box. And his main lieutenants with him. The “Parisian”, for his part, keeps control of his territory. A precarious balance once again reigns over Maurepas. Not for long.
Spirals of clothes
At the same time, problems began at the neighboring deal point, that of Gros-Chêne, located only a few dozen meters away. The scenario repeats itself: this time, the young person is 21 years old. He too is released from detention. Originally from Rennes, where he trained, the man worked for a few years in Marseille, before being incarcerated at Baumettes prison. His own objective? Getting “back into” traffic. The arrival of the “Marseillais” in the Breton capital triggers a spiral of hatred, for obscure reasons that the investigation seeks to unravel.
Once again, violence is unleashed. Gunshots in front of the Aldi on September 30, kidnapping, nighttime shooting on rue Saint-Michel on October 6… The chase of October 26, which ended in the head injury of the 5-year-old boy? It would also have its origins in this Gros-Chêne dispute.
Since then, according to our information, several people have been incarcerated. “We have an entire ecosystem to bring down,” explains a judicial source. We hope that the dismantling of the deal points, and therefore the weakening of the existing groups, will not lead to other wars and create more collateral victims. » A sign that the war is still raging: more and more people from Nantes, a neighboring city also affected by drug trafficking, have recently been spotted in Maurepas. “We found some of them at the Rennes hospital, badly damaged. »
