For centuries, the most famous merchants of Morlaix, a city of cobblestones and crepes on France’s Brittany coast, were those who traded in linen during the Renaissance and built many of the unique half-timbered buildings in the center of the town. Structure house.
New dealers are another story.
France has long been Europe’s main illegal drug market, but its domestic drug trade and the violence that comes with it have raised new concerns. Experts say the illegal drug trade has become more visible in France’s small and medium-sized cities over the past few years, bringing a level of insecurity to places that once felt sleepy and safe. Morlay, with a population of about 15,000, is one of them.
“We are facing a wave of cocaine – it is a new thing,” said Mayor Jean-Paul Vermot.
On a recent morning, Mr. Wilmer visited Morlaix, pointing proudly to the quaint quay, the balcony of the town hall where General de Gaulle gave a speech in July 1945, and what has been converted into an 18th-century tobacco factory.
He also showed off a park bench where he said three years ago a group of young drug dealers threatened to kill him and burn down his house. He showed a public housing estate where he said drug dealing had recently taken place openly before a police crackdown. He showed the door of a home still riddled with bullet holes from a recent attempt by a group of young drug dealers to intimidate another young man who was in debt to them.
Faced with what it calls a “simultaneous explosion” of supply and demand for illegal drugs, officials across France are accepting proposals to crack down on traffickers. As some governments across the Americas and Europe have decriminalized or decriminalized marijuana, conservative politicians have begun accusing recreational consumers, including marijuana users, of supporting the deadly industry.
Given France’s political instability, it remains to be seen whether all this constitutes a new round of France’s war on drugs. France’s center-right national government collapsed last month amid bitter disagreements over the 2025 budget. A new government with broadly similar political leanings was announced just before Christmas.
Interior Minister Bruno Retaileleau is a holdover from the previous minister and a hard-line architect of the proposed anti-drug program. Its Justice Minister Gerrald Darmanin recently said he wanted the 100 biggest drug traffickers currently imprisoned to be held in solitary confinement “like terrorists”.
It is clear that any future discussion of drug policy will not be limited to the traditional hotspots of the Paris suburbs or Marseille, France’s second-largest city, a legendary bastion of organized crime.
Now more than ever, people talk about the drugs of “Deep France” or “Deep France”, these slow-paced places considered to be home to an important part of the country’s soul. In May, a French Senate report found that “human trafficking has intensified in rural areas and medium-sized cities” and is “accompanied by outbreaks of violence that are particularly striking and worrying, sometimes allowing citizens to experience a veritable war.” scene”.
Mr. Retello said drug trafficking in France brought the country to the brink of “Mexicanization,” a term that seemed to connote a loss of government control over public security, corruption of public officials and the growing prominence of drug gangs in public life. Some experts thought the language was exaggerated. But many acknowledge that some harrowing incidents outside major cities have raised new concerns.
In October, a 5-year-old child was shot twice during a drug-related car chase in Pest, a town near Rennes. In November, a 15-year-old boy was shot in the head during a shootout with a drug cartel in Poitiers, a city with a population of 90,000 in central and western France.
Le Parisien reported last month that five people had been identified as suspects in the armed kidnapping of a 77-year-old woman in June in Trévoux, a town of 7,000 people north of Lyon, in a bid to target her with drugs. The son was part of a related blackmail scheme.
All of these incidents pale in comparison to the recent troubles in Marseille, an ancient Mediterranean port that has become embroiled in a gangland turf war that has claimed dozens of lives in the past three years and witnessed the rise of a generation of teenage hit men. rise.
In November, Mr. Retolo and the left-leaning Didier Migaud, then justice minister, laid out plans for the war on drugs in Marseille. These include proposals to create a national prosecutor’s office and a special court dedicated to organized crime; additional police; and the appointment of a new “liaison judge” in Bogota, Colombia.
But during a visit to Rennes after the 5-year-old was shot to death, Mr. Retolo also placed some of the blame on users: “You guys who smoke weed and drink coke,” he said, “it has a taste.” It was the tears, most of all. What matters is that it’s blood.
A variety of illegal drugs are available in France, but cannabis and cocaine dominate. Lawmakers find the latter particularly troublesome.
Cocaine trafficking in France and across Europe began to take off in the late 1980s, when the U.S. drug market became saturated and U.S. officials began cracking down harder on cocaine. The European Drug Agency reported last year that cocaine seizures in Europe now exceed those in the United States.
French Senator Jérôme Durain, author of the Senate report and chairman of the Senate Investigative Committee on Drug Trafficking, said the spread of the drug trade to smaller towns was the inevitable result of criminal gangs in big cities seeking to expand into new markets. Technology has helped, he said, with the rise of “Uberization,” which allows people in rural areas to order medicines using their phones.
“It’s like 30 years ago, when I was young, there was a McDonald’s in Paris,” Duran said in an interview. “They’re everywhere now.”
The mayor of Morlaix, Vermot, said drugs were becoming more common there. He said a recent police surveillance of a known trading website found users from all walks of life. “Business owners, workers, officials, craftsmen and people living on the margins – we really have a whole spectrum of society coming to this new phenomenon of buying cocaine,” he said.
Mr Vermot noted that Morlaix’s public housing estates were well looked after and well integrated into the community with its wealthy residents. This is not the case in some of France’s largest cities, where poor people clustered in suburbs or suburbs can feel isolated from the city center and the economic mainstream.
In a tight-knit city, he said, it also means he’s quick to hear complaints from his neighbors.
“Living together actually allows us to mitigate, reduce, and avoid a certain number of social problems,” including when young dealers get into trouble, he said.
Morlay is far from a city crippled by crime. In a country with strict gun restrictions, the problem may seem quaint by American standards. Residents are aware of the problem, but not everyone supports the crackdown.
Night watchman Aurélien Cariou, 48, said he suspected the proposed drug policy was a manifestation of prejudice against ethnic minorities, who tend to live in France’s poorer neighborhoods. A tough stance on cannabis in particular seemed like an excuse to “knock Moroccans and Algerians on the head,” he said.
Daniel Ricoul, 55, the owner of a cosmetics store in the center of town, said the government needed to step up efforts to address illegality. “You have to stay firm,” he said.
Senator Duran, like the mayor, is a member of the Socialist Party. He said he has spoken to a number of left-leaning mayors across the country who agree with many of the proposed changes to the system because they know there are problems. If the proposals are embraced by both the left and the right, it could lend support to pending anti-drug bills in a deeply polarized Legislature that otherwise seems unable to agree.
Mayor Vermot said some of the city’s problems have been alleviated with the recent wave of arrests. But he knew he was facing a long battle. He said he likes some of the ideas that would give law enforcement more tools to go after drug dealers and traffickers. But he worries that conservatives seeking to rein in France’s ballooning debt will cut social programs aimed at reining in trouble in the drug world.
Still, he said: “We have to be honest. This is a problem. We have to continue to face it.
Segolena Lestradic Reporting from Paris.
