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The highly political French fight against drug trafficking

France is facing unprecedented levels of drug-related violence and trafficking

By: EBR - Posted: Thursday, January 30, 2025

This week, the French Senate will review and likely approve a cross-party bill on the fight against drug trafficking, which incorporates recommendations from an investigative commission set up last spring.
This week, the French Senate will review and likely approve a cross-party bill on the fight against drug trafficking, which incorporates recommendations from an investigative commission set up last spring.

by Laurent Geslin

France is facing unprecedented levels of drug-related violence and trafficking, and it seems that those who now claim to be fighting this scourge are scoring political points in a rapidly changing landscape.

Rarely has an issue generated such consensus within the French political class.

This week, the French Senate will review and likely approve a cross-party bill on the fight against drug trafficking, which incorporates recommendations from an investigative commission set up last spring.

To combat the "submersion" of French territory under organised crime, the bill calls for "shock treatment". The aim is to prevent France from becoming a "narco-state", as one of the bill’s rapporteurs, Les Républicains senator Etienne Blanc, put it.

Proposed measures include strengthening the French anti-narcotics agency, which is responsible for coordinating efforts to dismantle criminal organisations, creating a national prosecutor’s office specialising in drug trafficking, and stepping up financial investigations to target traffickers’ assets.

Surge in trafficking and violence

The increase in drug seizures in recent years reflects the dramatic rise in trafficking. 49 tonnes of cocaine were seized in 2024, compared with 27.7 tonnes in 2022 and just 6.6 tonnes in 2014.
The number of users has also risen sharply. According to the French Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction, more than one million people used cocaine in 2023, compared to 600,000 in 2019.

Meanwhile, trafficking-related violence now affects the entire country, including medium-sized towns and rural areas.

Just in the first half of January, a shooting broke out in the university district of Rennes, six shops in the Besançon metropolitan area were riddled with bullets, and three people were wounded by gunfire in Nîmes. Police linked each incident to local drug gangs.

“Global cocaine production has skyrocketed, and Europe is a prime target,” said Clotilde Champeyrache, a specialist in the economics of criminal networks.

"Since the COVID lockdowns, drugs are being delivered directly to users’ homes, making it easier to reach those far from traditional dealing hotspots," the specialist added.

Increased repression in large cities has also led traffickers to move their activities to less controlled areas, said Nacer Lalam, researcher at the Interior Ministry’s Institute for Advanced Studies (IHEMI).

“From hubs like Marseille, small teams travel along major highways to reach smaller towns, where they sometimes come into conflict with local traffickers,” he said.

A highly political struggle

Although the government of centrist François Bayrou could fall as early February following the presentation of the 2025 budget, two ’tough on crime’ ministers – Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau and Justice Minister Gérald Darmanin – are topping opinion polls.
Both are preparing for the 2027 presidential election, and both have made the fight against drugs one of their top priorities.

Appointed last autumn under the former Barnier government, Retailleau describes his as a "vital battle" for France. Earlier this month, the minister outlined the establishment of an operational intelligence unit on narcotics at the port of Le Havre, where more than 14 tonnes of cocaine were seized in 2024.

The day before, Darmanin announced plans to put France’s "top 100" drug traffickers in maximum security prisons by the summer of 2025 to prevent them from running their networks from behind bars. As interior minister under the previous Attal, Borne and Castex governments, Darmanin also launched "clean sweep" operations aimed at dismantling trafficking networks.

Between September 2023 and December 2024, police carried out more than 300 interventions across France, mobilising over 50,000 police officers.

However, results were mixed, with an average of five kilos of cannabis and 200 grams of cocaine seized per operation.

"The fight against drug trafficking is often used by right-wing governments when several ministers are vying for power, even though the most repressive laws on the issue are usually passed by the left," Yann Bisiou, a specialist in public drug policies, added.

"Regardless of the party, it’s always a message that resonates—after all, who could oppose measures to combat drug trafficking?"

Now, the challenge is to see whether the new law will yield results.

According to the Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction, the average purity of cocaine consumed in France was 73% in 2023, compared to 46% in 2011. This suggests traffickers are improving product quality to remain competitive in a highly contested market - an indirect indication of the failure of anti-drug policies over the past decade.

*first published in: Euractiv.com

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