Arthur de Laborde and Jacques Serais / Photo credit: CHRISTOPHE ENA / POOL / AFP
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7:51 p.m., March 19, 2024
Emmanuel Macron was traveling to Marseille this Tuesday for a surprise visit. The head of state visited the La Castellane district, in the north of the city, where an “XXL square net” operation is taking place at this very moment to fight against drug trafficking. A trip also very political for the president.
It is a posture of firmness that Emmanuel Macron wants to embody on the ground. This Tuesday, the Head of State went to the city of La Castellane in Marseille, where a vast anti-drug operation, called “square net XXL”, is underway. A surprise visit during which the president indulged in a crowd and exchanged, sometimes in a muscular manner, with the inhabitants on different subjects.
But it is above all to discuss drug trafficking, which is plaguing the Marseille city, that Emmanuel Macron made the trip. In his press conference in January, he asked for ten “clearance” operations each week. When he visited La Castellane last June, the president explained that Marseille was a sort of laboratory city on which the Head of State was committing very significant resources.
A campaign trip
The Head of State therefore returns to show that the fight against drug trafficking is not only the business of his Minister of the Interior, but that it is taken to the highest level of the State. . Less than three months before the European elections, it is also a campaign trip for Emmanuel Macron which allows him to occupy space and be at the center of media attention.
The president wants to show that there is no lawless zone and that he can go anywhere, in contact with the population and that he is indeed the leader of the daily life of the French. Residents who question him on all subjects: employment, everyday problems and even the international situation since several discussions focused on the war in Ukraine and the situation in Gaza. It is also because of this international news which has mobilized him a lot recently that Emmanuel Macron wanted to go to the field. As if it was also a question of saving appearances of a poorly launched program, the one that he himself imagined and announced in September 2021: “Marseille en grand”.
Two weeks ago, the leak of a provisional document from the Court of Auditors revealed the weaknesses of this plan, supposed to make up for the delays in housing, education, public transport and security. But it is above all the shocking words of Marseille magistrates calling for a Marshall plan against drug banditry which seems to have awakened the executive.