Drugs: why the French authorities qualify the Netherlands as a “narco-state”


William Molinié, edited by Alexandre Dalifard
modified to

07:51, April 12, 2023

Since Tuesday, President Emmanuel Macron has been on a state visit to the Netherlands. For three years, this country has become the first in the European Union to legalize the production of cannabis. Faced with this, France is concerned about the monopoly of very powerful criminal organizations on the drug market.

While Emmanuel Macron is on a state visit to the Netherlands, Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin joins him this Wednesday. While judicial cooperation between the two countries is reputed to be good, France is concerned about the monopoly of very powerful criminal organizations on the drug market. Three years ago, the Netherlands became the first country in the European Union to legalize the production of cannabis. The land of tulips is gradually becoming a “narco-state”.

The turnover of illegal drugs is estimated at more than 15 billion euros

The word remains taboo but in the highest circles of the French police, the Netherlands is described as a “narco-state”. The idea is to understand a country whose economic and social model is partly based on the production and sale of narcotics. For the past three years, it has been possible to grow cannabis there legally. But the traffickers have not come behind the law. The turnover of illegal drugs is estimated at more than 15 billion euros and 200 tonnes of cocaine transit each year through the ports of the North Sea. They have replaced those in the Iberian Peninsula as the gateway for cocaine to the Old Continent.

Another edifying figure, half of the cocaine consumed today in Europe would pass through the port of Rotterdam. The Kingdom has also become the main place for the manufacture and packaging of synthetic drugs in Europe. Dutch drug traffickers use the same modus operandi as their South American counterparts. Heavy weapons, explosives, kidnappings and assassinations. A lawyer and a journalist recently fell under the bullets of organized crime.

The Prime Minister and the royal family are regularly threatened by the “MocroMafia”, these Moroccan networks rooted in the suburbs of Amsterdam. The threat now extends to Belgium and is pointing its nose in France. Last November, during a crackdown within a European cocaine super-cartel, 6 drug barons were arrested on French territory.



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