The Minister of Justice Didier Migaud said on Friday November 8 in Marseille that he was considering the judgment of “organized gang crimes”, linked in particular to narcotics, by special assize courts, composed solely of professional magistrates, like terrorism cases.
Use only professional magistrates rather than the popular juries that normally make up assize courts “would remove the risk of pressure exerted on the jurors with a view to guiding the final judicial decision”declared the Minister of Justice during a joint press conference with the Minister of the Interior Bruno Retailleau.
Didier Migaud also announced the implementation “in the coming weeks” of a “national coordination cell” to fight against “scourge” drug trafficking.
“I will establish in the coming weeks, in the presence of the Prime Minister, a national coordination unit responsible for taking stock of the threat, setting an operational strategy and implementing it”he indicated, specifying that “the teams of the Paris prosecutor’s office working on the fight against organized crime at the national level (would) thus be strengthened by 40%”.
A “national cause”
The justice and interior ministers called for “stand together” and to act ” quickly “ in the fight against drug trafficking, established as « cause nationale ». “It’s a national fight that will take years, 10, 15, 20 years”warned Bruno Retailleau.
According to Didier Migaud, measures “immediate” can be taken directly by the government, others require “develop the legislative arsenal”passing through Parliament. Prime Minister Michel Barnier entrusted the two ministers with the search for“a transpartisan consensus” based on a bill on the subject, drafted by senators Etienne Blanc (LR) and Jérôme Durain (PS).
The text, which must be examined on January 27 by the Senate, proposes in particular to recalibrate the Anti-Narcotics Office (Ofast) into a real “French DEA”named after the American drug control agency, and to create a national anti-narcotics prosecution (Pnast).
The expectations of victims’ families
Before continuing their journey each on their own, one to the police officers of the northern districts of the city, the other to the Baumettes prison then to the judicial court, Bruno Retailleau and Didier Migaud spoke in the morning with the families of victims of murders linked to drug trafficking.
“We felt real listening, real interest”underlined Laëtitia Linon, the aunt of a teenager killed at 14, who said she « pour » that we judge the “drug traffickers like terrorists”. This proposal “looks like what Italy does for the mafia and it works”.
In 2023, 49 deaths linked to drug trafficking were recorded in Marseille, including seven minors, a record.
