William Molinie//Photo credits: STEPHANE DE SAKUTIN / AFP
The Minister of the Interior is going to Marseille this Wednesday for a two-day visit. It will be a question of security while France’s second city experienced a dark year of shootings in 2023 linked to drug trafficking.
Gérald Darmanin on the ground. The Minister of the Interior is traveling to Marseille this Wednesday and Thursday to address the issue of security. The Marseille city is still mired in drug trafficking. The Minister of the Interior will try to make people forget the year 2023, a dark year concerning the settling of scores in France’s second city.
A devastating toll
Never before has drug trafficking caused so many victims in Marseille: 49 people lost their lives and 118 injured in 2023 linked to drug trafficking. Shootings rule the city day and night. And at least four collateral deaths are to be deplored in the year 2023.
These serial settling of scores against a backdrop of drug trafficking are for the most part linked to a vendetta. Two drug trafficking clans share at least half of the city’s deal points. Faced with this devastating toll, Place Beauveau wants to be reassuring: “police work is bearing fruit”, insists Gérald Darmanin’s entourage.
A new CRS company
More than 70 members of these two criminal organizations were incarcerated and 300 additional police officers took up their posts in Marseille last September. A new CRS company has set up in the city, CRS 81, created on the model of CRS 8, specializing in urban violence.
The means are certainly important, but it is difficult to know how they could stop this spiral of violence, as drug trafficking has woven its web in the Marseille city.