2024 was “a tipping point” for the metropolis, entry into the drug industry

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Shootings in the middle of residential towers, murders and a five-year-old child shot in the head: 2024 was a “tipping point” for Rennes with “ultraviolent” settling of scores committed by “mercenaries” coming from elsewhere, worry local authorities and stakeholders.

Despite its 37 deal points distributed mainly between four districts (Maurepas, Cleunay, Le Blosne and Villejean), Rennes and its 222,000 inhabitants were until then relatively spared from drug banditry.

The modus operandi of traffickers has changed

In March, a shooting with an automatic weapon lasting more than an hour in the middle of the night in Blosne, “raised awareness” that the traffickers’ modus operandi has changedexplains to theAFP the public prosecutor of Rennes, Frédéric Teillet.

We are now facing a phenomenon of uninhibited, very visible ultraviolence. Our resources are not increasing to match those of the traffickers who are multiplying.

Since March, “not a week without a homicide, a shooting or an attempted murder linked to drug trafficking,” summarizes a police officer. “It’s been brewing since Covidbut now it's exploding. »

“There is a increased traffic (…) with very structured traffickers who compete for lucrative places »confirms toAFP the interdepartmental director of the national police of Ille-et-Vilaine, Yannick Blouin, speaking of “uninhibited violence”.

Facts that send the Minister of the Interior to Rennes

The excitement becomes national when, on October 26, a five-year-old child was shot twice in the head. From November 1, Bruno Retailleau, Minister of the Interior, went to Rennes to announce in particular the arrival of the CRS 82, specialized in urban violence, in Maurepas.

The alleged perpetrator of the shots which hit the child (now hemiplegic) is a 16-year-old teenager, reveals Thursday December 19 the prosecutor, who announces the conviction of 22 people for violence linked to drug trafficking since July.

“Mercenaries”

Today, in Maurepas, the CRS 82 left. “Nothing has changed, the deal points are still there,” notes Pascal Lesage, 60, resident of the neighborhood. “We learn to live with them. »

In clusters of three, young men dressed in black and hooded rub shoulders with parents came to pick up their children at primary school very close. A few meters further on, teenagers monitor the comings and goings near an Aldi supermarket.

“These are kids 16-20 year olds, fed up with social networks and violence. They don’t see themselves alive in ten years,” regrets a source close to investigations into these deal points.

THE teenagers “are armed on deal points, that didn't exist before. But they don't know how to shoot and when there is a shooting, they shoot everywhere, at the risk of hitting an apartment or a child.

In Rennes, the sales outlets “are still run by local people, but the kids go from town to town,” explains this same source.

These are often Mahorais and Guyaneseincreasingly young, “with a coexistence of people based locally and mercenaries who rent their services,” notes a judicial source.

Aged around thirty, a man who has co-managed one of Maurepas’ “ovens” “for 15 years” tells theAFP earn “2,000 euros per week”. Business is “better and better”, notably “thanks to coke”, he assures.

Arrival of crack

The Rennes deal points offer a cocaine sometimes fragmented so that half a gram costs 30 eurosan attractive price for consumers, notes Guillaume Pavic, researcher for the French Observatory of Drugs and Addictive Tendencies (OFDT).

If for the authorities, the “tipping point” in Rennes is recent, the expert places it as early as 2016 when American drug addicts abandoned South American cocaine in favor of opioids like Fentanyl.

THE South American cartels then flood the European marketparticularly via the Breton and Normandy coasts. As a result, the white powder flows into Brittany. “The effect is mechanical: prices fall, consumers increase,” notes the expert.

Brittany has a good pool of customers

The region presents a “good pool of customers” thanks to the presence of 350 festivals and free parties per year, he notes. There consumption hashish, cocaine, ecstasy and ketamine “becomes commonplace”.

Like everywhere in France, the Cocaine sold “is more and more pureat the risk of increasing consumption accidents, including overdoses, points out Mr. Pavic.

A rather rare occurrence outside Île-de-France, Rennes has had a crack sales point in Blosne since 2023. “Selling crackit means accepting that people consume it on site. This scares away other customers and is a hell for the inhabitants »sighs Mr. Pavic.

That three investigators

According to the mayor of Rennes, Nathalie Appéré (PS), the recent violence is the consequence of “rivalries linked to deal point control”.

Faced with traffickers, “there is no only three investigators for the unit dedicated to drug trafficking. They can’t keep up,” denounces Frédéric Gallet, of the Alliance union.

“We have to pass Rennes in a difficult sector”

“We need to strengthen the teams, pass Rennes in a difficult sector so that the bonus that goes with it attracts recruits. »

Prosecutor Frédéric Teillet also insists on the importance of investigating money laundering networks.

Dismantling a point of deal is a surface action, which must be done, but it does not strike at the heart.

In the neighborhoods, “the challenge is to keep in touch with adolescents so that they can leave the traffic if they decide to do so,” pleads a field worker. “But this is only possible with young people who live in the neighborhood. Those who are just passing through, we have already lost them. »

Source AFP

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