In France, where right and left parties note in unison the devastation caused by the growth of drug trafficking, the government continues, as it has for thirty years, to choose a policy focused on repression, despite inconclusive results.
Drugs have never circulated so much in the country, the turnover of trafficking being estimated between 3.5 and 6 billion euros per year, an amount which fuels the desire of many rival gangs waging a bloody turf war. .
To stem the phenomenon, the Minister of the Interior Bruno Retailleau, standard bearer of a hard right, and the Minister of Justice Didier Migaud, from the ranks of the left, are in Marseille on Friday, where the settling of scores between Drug traffickers are particularly deadly, with 49 deaths in 2023 and the involvement of young people aged 14-15 as hired killers.
Objective f: present a new combat plan which should take up, and reinforce, the proposals of a senatorial report on the impact of drug trafficking.
Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau promised a “guerre” long and merciless against drug trafficking, notably passing a law at the beginning of 2025, even evoking a “Mexicanization” of the country.
“If we do nothing, we could become a narco-state.” believes Etienne Blanc, senator for Les Républicains, Mr. Retailleau’s party, and co-author of the report published in May.
He denounces a “violence without limits”shootings in the streets or even cases of corruption among public officials: clerks, customs officers, gendarmes.
This week, a 15-year-old boy shot in the head during a drug-related shooting in Poitiers, western France, died from his injuries.
“All-repressive”
“There is a general atmosphere of repression. If we do not adapt the sentences, we will not solve the problems. Any other speech is inaudible. Violence calls for violence.” deplores, however, a magistrate who has worked on the subject for a long time.
He regrets the ineffectiveness of the “Place Net XXL” operations, launched under the former Minister of the Interior Gérald Darmanin and which aimed to purge drug dealing sites with heavy police reinforcements and media communication.
Of “window dressing”, comments this magistrate. “It’s like chasing pigeons, it doesn’t get rid of them.”
For their part, senators Etienne Blanc and Jérôme Durain (socialist) propose in their report to make the Anti-Narcotics Office (Ofast) a “French-style DEA”, named after the American federal agency.
“There is a terrible disproportion between the resources of traffickers (and those of) the police and French justice”observes Jérôme Durain, for whom France must “react immediately”.
Going after consumers
Another hobbyhorse of Bruno Retailleau: demand. While Germany has committed to the legalization of recreational cannabis this year, like Malta and Luxembourg, and other European countries (Spain, Portugal, Netherlands) are more tolerant of its consumption, the French minister wants to tackle the “culture of trivialization” drugs.
“Smoking a joint or taking a shot of coke means having blood on your hands”insists Mr. Retailleau. Guilt can, however, prove counterproductive, notes Catherine Delorme, president of the Addiction Federation, which brings together professionals in the sector.
“The more you stigmatize behaviors, the more it discourages people from going to places of support” or risk reduction, she emphasizes, regretting that “the repression budget (has) increased by 78% since 2018 while that of prevention and care has decreased by 2.37%.
After 30 years of policy focused on repression, cannabis remains the most consumed illicit drug in France and its distribution has continued to increase.
Its experimentation rate increased from 12.7% in 1992 to 50.4% in 2023, or one in two adults, although its regular use has remained stable for 10 years, shows a study by the French Observatory of Drugs and addictive tendencies (OFDT) published in June.
At the same time, cocaine consumption will explode in 2023 in France, where one in ten adults have already taken it at least once in their life, notes the OFDT.
