French
prisons hit by wave of attacks after clampdown on drug traffickers
Terrorism
office launches investigation into assaults including gunmen opening fire on
entrance to Toulon jail
Kim Willsher
in Paris
Tue 15 Apr
2025 17.05 BST
France’s
national terrorism office has launched an investigation into a wave of
apparently coordinated attacks at multiple prisons across the country believed
to be linked to a government clampdown on drug traffickers.
Gunmen with
automatic weapons opened fire on the entrance to Toulon prison in southern
France in the early hours of Tuesday, while in recent days cars have been set
alight outside four other jails, and in Marseille a residential building
housing prison guards was attacked.
The attacks
came as the French parliament prepares to approve a new law increasing the
power of police investigating drug dealers, toughening prison conditions for
convicted traffickers and creating a new prosecutors’ office responsible for
investigating organised crime.
Soaring
cocaine imports from South America to Europe have sparked drug-linked violence
in France, where seizures of the drug are at a historic high, police say. The
drug gangs traditionally based in cities such as Marseille have expanded into
smaller regional towns unused to drug violence.
The justice
minister, Gérald Darmanin, was due to visit Toulon prison on Tuesday afternoon
in a show of solidarity with staff. Darmanin said he was determined to stamp
out drug kingpins’ capacity to operate from behind bars and had ordered the
building of two new high-security jails to hold more than 700 prisoners.
“Attempts
have been made to intimidate staff in several prisons ranging from burning
vehicles to firing automatic weapons. The French Republic is facing up to the
problem of drug trafficking and taking measures that will massively disrupt the
criminal networks,” Darmanin wrote on X.
He added:
“The Republic is confronted with drug trafficking and is taking measures that
will deeply disturb criminal networks. It is being challenged and will be firm
and courageous.”
Prisons in
Marseille, Aix-en-Provence, Valence, Nîmes, Luynes, Villepinte and Nanterre
were also targeted. Staff unions said burnt vehicles had been found in prison
car parks for several days in the runup to what appeared to be Monday night’s
coordinated assault. Cars have also been set alight outside the National School
of Prison Administration.
The
legislation before the French parliament would allow prisons to hold convicted
drug dealers in isolation, deprive them of collective walks and access to
family life units, tap their phones and limit calls. Darmanin has also proposed
giving the justice minister the power to decide whether solitary confinement
orders – which must currently be renewed every three months – can be applied
for up to four years, and applied not only to convicted drug traffickers but
also those awaiting trial.
The
appointment of the National Anti-Terrorism Prosecutor’s Office (PNAT) to
oversee the investigation, as opposed to the organised crime unit, suggests
police believe the attacks may be the work of a militant group. PNAT said it
would be working with the country’s interior intelligence agency.
The interior
minister, Bruno Retailleau, said the attacks were “unacceptable” and ordered
increased police protection of prisons and staff.
In February
– as he announced record cocaine seizures of 47 tonnes in the first 11 months
of last year, more than double that seized in 2023 – Retailleau said France had
been hit by a “white tsunami” that had rewritten the rules of the criminal
landscape.
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