former teenage dealers tell how they got out of drug trafficking in Marseille

“I was forced to deal”confides Pablo, who has just turned 18. We know it : drug trafficking networks operate in a pyramid fashion. At the bottom of the ladder, very often, young teenagers. It’s even a trend at the moment : sellers are getting younger and younger. Franceinfo went to a rehabilitation center for juvenile delinquents in Marseille.

In the Calendal shelter, of the fifty young people welcomed, most were recruited very young by traffickers, like Pablo and Enzo*. Both are former deal hands in Marseille. With chaotic life histories, they were easy prey for trafficking networks.

Born in Tunisia, Pablo arrived in France at the age of 14, with his little brother. He ends up in an emergency shelter. And like other teenagers from the establishment, he was quickly recruited by Marseille traffickers. “My job? Lookout. And seller from time to time. But they forced me to be a salesman, by threatening me“, he confides.

The young man is threatened, forced to sell drugs, “charbonner“, as they say here, for 50 to 100 euros per day. This lasts a few months until the day Pablo is arrested during a police raid in the city. “As soon as I got caught once, that’s it, I stopped.”he assures, specifying that he is now staying far from the city. And for good reason: he owes a debt to the traffickers. “If I go back, they’re going to tell me to pay back what the police took… They’re going to give me coal for free. And if I don’t, it’s going to end badly“, regrets Pablo.

For two years, the young man has been welcomed into this home, where he was able to begin training, a CAP in carpentry. “Traffic is overhe said. All this is useless because in the end, it’s either prison or death. Whoever says easy money, no, it’s not easy money. It’s really hard money, you’re risking your life. It’s just bullshit.“

At the Calendal household, he meets Enzo, 16 years old. He also had a childhood spent in a Marseille neighborhood within a dysfunctional family, placed in a home very early on and the deal from the age of 13-14, in a city where violence reigns and where, for nothing, you can be threatened. “We can hit you, and then they can kill you… It’s crazy“, he whispers. Before slipping, which he had “not even afraid“.

“For Enzo, it’s normal. He doesn’t have this notion of fear, explains Karine Courtaud-Lamaire, the director of the Calendal home. They are much younger in trafficking. Before, it was more like 16, more like 17-18 years old“, she deciphers.

“Today, it is at the entrance to the college that we see young people who are caught up in the neighborhoods…”

Karine Courtaud-Lamaire

at franceinfo

Another new feature, insists the specialist: trafficking networks are now trying to establish a reign of terror within the reintegration structures themselves. The Calendal home paid the price when one of the teenagers housed had merchandise seized by the police. These threats to the home even pushed the director to hire a security guard to monitor the entrance to the establishment.

But despite the pressure exerted by the networks, the center continues its work to reintegrate minors by offering them an appropriate educational path or professional training, and by housing them suitably. And then, quite simply, by giving them consideration.

“When a young person arrives here, we worry that he will be expected. And for him, that changes everything. One day, I welcomed a young person who arrived. It was his seventh placement. And I said to him, ‘listen, welcome, we were waiting for you’. He then looks at me: ‘but why welcome? What ?’. His reaction says it all: whatever he did, today we welcome him“, explains Karine Courtaud-Lamaire.

Before describing: “When we welcome them, they have a trousseau waiting for them. They have a room that smells good. A reference educator to talk to, to discuss. We are not in the world of Care Bears: whatever happens, the young person does not want to be placed. But, despite everything, we want to give him the opportunity to show him something else. We make candy available: we then appeal to the child that they are or that they have never been able to be. But we’re not going to work just that. We will firstly offer him a professional and educational path. We leave no young person behind: today, at Calendal, there is no child who is not either in school, or in an adapted school, or on an apprenticeship contract, or on an internship. “assures the head of the home.

“It’s a home where we take good care of the kids. And we have successes: diplomas, a BTS! Of course they’re not just bandits, as one of the young people would say. We’re going to show them that They’re not just bandits.”

Karine Courtaud-Lamaire

at franceinfo

Seeing young people in multiple placements, with complex life paths, getting through it is a source of pride for Yves, an educator specializing in the structure. “You pulled off something where you were the loser. You are proud! It’s quite nice to see that what you have implemented on a young person is successful. These young people all failed and they all gave up… But here you are, you get him out of there. The kid goes from being a multiple offender, gets out, before coming back to see us, a year later, with a permanent contract, a family… Yes, you are proud!“, smiles Yves.