Gérald Darmanin is in Marseille for two days. The Minister of the Interior gives an update on the strategy to fight against drug trafficking while the deaths in the settling of scores are increasing in the department.

Gérald Darmanin is traveling to Marseille on Thursday and Friday. The Minister of the Interior has just examined the question of the fight against drug trafficking and the circulation of arms.

“The first person responsible is the consumer. If there were no consumers, there would be no traffic”he declared on the set of France 3 Provence-Alpes, guest of the JT of 7 p.m.

The minister referred to traffic which has “encysted”bringing to life “hundreds of people with easy money”.

“We have, for two years, put a lot of resources including CRS everywhere in the Bouches-du-Rhône and in particular in Marseille. In the first half of this year alone, it is 40% more seizures of cannabis , it’s 2,000% more cocaine seizures, it’s 26 fewer deal points, there are still 200 in the department so there’s still a lot of work to do, and it’s also 70% weapons seized in addition”he detailed on the set of France 3 Paca.

We will put considerable resources into continuing to reduce drugs in Marseille.

Gerald Darmanin

France 3 Paca

The Minister underlined the lack of technological means: “We don’t have enough CCTV cameras in the Bouches-du-Rhône. (…) We are ready to pay for a large part of this equipment.”

At the beginning of February, Marseille police chief Frédérique Camilleri welcomed the fines for drug use and the arrests in 2021.

On the approximately 150 deal points listed in Marseille, regular “shelling” work was carried out, at the rate of 3 to 6 operations per day, with all the police services and in particular the two CRS companies (120 men) subjected as reinforcements in Marseille in March 2021.

In the northern districts of Marseille, the city of La Bricarde is one of the most active staggering points. In 2021, the police applied an assumed policy of harassment of these drug trafficking points. Watch our report:

In total, more than 16,000 fixed fines for the use of narcotics have been issued since July 2020 in the Bouches-du-Rhône. It is the leading department in France on this point, with 12% of the changes made at the national level.

Sunday, June 26, gunshots broke out in Arles, in the district of Griffeuille, a sensitive city known for its drug trafficking. A 15-year-old young man, shot, died the following day.

This neighborhood had already been the scene of violence in the past. The police intervened last week for shots.

The Bouches-du-Rhône police headquarters assured that ten new police officers who arrived in 2021 have made it possible to create a security group dedicated to the fight against trafficking in Arles.

Sunday, June 5, a settlement of accounts at the city of Bricarde in Marseilles caused one death. This city in the 15th arrondissement was the scene of several bloody settling of accounts in 2021.

The list is long. Saturday May 28, 2022, a 19-year-old young man was shot and killed in the 3rd arrondissement of Marseille. AFP then counted oeleven people shot dead since the beginning of the year in the Bouches-du-Rhône, and two by stabbing, mostly in Marseille, most often against a backdrop of drug trafficking.

In 2021, the settling of accounts killed 94 people in France, including more than a quarter in Marseille.