“The judicial system has fallen behind in the fight against organized crime”

At the head of the National Anti-Terrorism Prosecutor's Office (PNAT) from 2019 to 2024, Jean-François Ricard defends the creation of a national organized crime prosecutor's office with very different objectives and functioning, to respond to the specificities of drug trafficking. “We need decentralization (…)coordination. (…) And someone who decidessupports the magistrate.

What do you think of the plan to fight drug trafficking, announced Friday November 8 by the Ministers of the Interior and Justice?

We can be pleased that the government is taking up the subject, especially since the previous government had left an analysis on the matter on its desk. The judicial system has fallen behind. It must be filled. The project remained to be constructed, based on the work carried out over several years at the chancellery, the senatorial report on drug trafficking and the consultation work carried out in my report. There is an undeniable urgency. But we remain unsatisfied with the precision of the content of the ads.

You are the author of a report on the creation of a national anti-organized crime prosecutor's office. Do you find your measures in the ministers’ announcements?

I am the writer of the report, but it is a summary of all the interviews I conducted. It is a joint construction. I started with a blank sheet of paper. I didn't know what my colleagues were going to tell me. There were a lot of reflections, and a lot of contributions from magistrates: some proposed a national jurisdiction, others a general public prosecutor's office… I had only one conviction: above all, do not reproduce what exists in terms of terrorism.

Why is the model of the National Anti-Terrorism Prosecutor’s Office – which you led from its creation, in 2019, until spring 2024 – not, in your opinion, adaptable to the fight against drug trafficking?

This comes back to the question of the differences between organized crime and terrorism. Before the creation of the PNAT, some wanted a prosecutor's office with dual jurisdiction, terrorism and organized crime. But it is a very bad idea: it does not correspond at all to the same operation, neither concerning offenders nor magistrates. Certainly, there are common techniques, common means, for example in terms of digital investigations. But these are two very different areas.

What are the main differences between the fight against terrorism and that against organized crime?

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