- France
- Drug use and trafficking
New acts of intimidation and homicide have been reported since the start of the summer, notably in the Paris and Grenoble areas. The authorities acknowledge their efforts are 'destabilizing the trafficking.'
ByLuc Leroux(Marseille (France) correspondent) and Thomas Saintourens
6 min read
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The summer chronicle of drug trafficking was for a time monopolized by an Australian field hockey player, caught at night, a few days after his team's elimination, with 1 gram of cocaine in his pocket on a street in the 9th arrondissement of Paris. The arrest of Tom Craig, who got away with a public apology and a criminal warning, will swell the police statistics in an area painted "blue" with reinforced manpower for the Olympic Games.
Drug-related offenses jumped by 138%, according to figures sent to Le Monde by the Police Prefecture, with a threefold increase in fines compared with July 2023. During the Olympic Games period, from July 15 to August 8, 802 people were charged with drug offenses, compared with 447 for the same period in 2023.
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The Police Prefecture unveiled another report, on the 55 "Place nette" ("clear the way") operations, conducted between January 1 and August 1. They involved 375 arrests, the seizure of 535 kilos of cannabis resin, 51 kilos of cannabis, 7 kilos of cocaine, 47 firearms and over €1.8 million. It is precisely around some of the neighborhoods targeted as hubs for the resale of narcotics and temporarily taken over by major police resources throughout the winter and spring that new acts of intimidation, violence and homicide related to drug trafficking have been recorded since the beginning of the summer. The Police Prefecture conceded to Le Monde: "These public and legal operations are destabilizing the trafficking and sparking turf wars to reclaim the dismantled deal points."
Paris' northeastern suburbs in mourning
One of France's main drug hubs, the Capsulerie housing project in the Paris suburb of Bagnolet, has not escaped these territorial wars. On July 14, in the middle of the afternoon, a 30-year-old man was shot dead by a gunman on a scooter. This homicide was not the only one to plunge the northeastern suburbs of Paris into mourning.
On the evening of July 19, in the Chemin Vert housing estate in Bobigny, reputed to be home to a particularly coveted drug dealing spot, two men known for their involvement in narcotics cases were killed in a shootout, while a third was seriously wounded. On July 30, a 46-year-old man, also known for his involvement in drug trafficking and recently released from prison, was shot four times with a Kalashnikov rifle outside his home in Livry-Gargan by two killers who left in a stolen car, which they later burned.
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These homicides are a continuation of the spring killings, notably in Aulnay-sous-Bois and Sevran, around fruitful deal points, also previously shut down by police operations and soon to be investigated by the justice system for combating organized crime. But this summer of vengeance has seeped into many other downtrodden corners of the country. It features local groups facing difficulties in pursuing their business – power vacuums due to incarceration, market relocation, and tensions between competing groups. In Hyères and Valence, southern France, Mulhouse in the east, and particularly in Grenoble, in the Alps, where several cases have followed one another since the end of July.
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