Le Figaro Marseille
Magistrates who say they are helpless in the face of drug traffickers who corrupt state officials, senators frightened by the violence of the settling of scores... Since the beginning of the week, the members of the commission of inquiry into drug trafficking in France look at the Marseille case, with, at the end of the day, a dizzying observation: that of a war against narco-banditry that certain magistrates, under oath and in front of senators, say
"soon lost"
, in the face of drug traffickers still more aggressive and organized.
“An asymmetrical war”
The words are strong, tinged with a discouragement which contrasts with the calming attitude displayed during press conferences by the new public prosecutor of Marseille, Nicolas Bessone.
After taking the oath this Tuesday in front of the committee members, Isabelle Fort makes a bitter observation.
“We are losing the war against traffickers in Marseille,”
believes the head of the organized crime unit of the
Marseille prosecutor’s office.
“The State seems to be waging an asymmetrical war against narco-banditry but finds itself weakened in the face of very equipped organized gangs
,” the president of the Marseille judicial court, Olivier Leurent, warned the senators.
Recently, the Marseille prosecutor's office was reinforced, with the arrival of 22 magistrates, coupled with the arrival of 21 investigators from the judicial police, which made it possible to considerably increase the number of judicial information linked to assassination attempts. (69 in 2023).
But these reinforcements seem in vain.
Before the senators, the magistrates still deplore a cruel lack of human resources, according to them, to deal with the 499 cases relating to organized crime underway in Marseille.
“We currently have around a hundred requests for nullity pending
,” reports Isabelle Couderc, vice-president responsible for coordinating the organized crime section within the Marseille court.
According to the magistrate, the files are piling up, the delay is accumulating, and the drug traffickers ultimately benefit from the situation.
“
If an investigating judge has not summoned an indictment of the detainee within four months
”, as the magistrate recalls, the defense “
can immediately submit a request for release to the investigating chamber” .
An “
impossible”
deadline for Isabelle Couderc, “
given the workload of our offices”.
And when magistrates manage to do their job on time, they are confronted with serious internal dysfunctions and a scourge called corruption.
Before the senators, for the first time since his appointment, Nicolas Bessone publicly and inevitably evokes this phenomenon.
“We are starting to have more and more problems with corruption among police officers
,” laments the public prosecutor of Marseille.
“On this low-intensity corruption, we must be clear: the battle is lost
,” insists Nicolas Bessone.
Corruption could also come from justice officials themselves, who would be paid to poorly prepare cases, and thus free potential drug traffickers due to procedural flaws.
“We are starting a discussion with the Attorney General on firms which would be subject to a lot of cancellations of procedures,”
confided Nicolas Bessone to the senators.
It could be incompetence... or corruption.
We currently have two investigations in Marseille into registry officials who are suspected of providing information to members of organized crime.”
However, on the side of drug traffickers, the magistrates note a lack of effect of the sentences, in particular incarceration, on their illicit activities.
Because, according to Nicolas Bessone, even behind bars, the
“network heads”
often manage the organization of their teams, or even the executions of competitors.
Such an order was recently heard by investigators in a wiretapped cell.
Before the senators, the public prosecutor announced that an inmate from the Aix-Luynes prison linked to the
“DZ Mafia”
was killed in his cell by his fellow inmate from the opposing
“Yoda”
clan .
Also readMarseille: who is behind the DZ Mafia and Yoda, these gangs responsible for bloody score-settling?
“In this asymmetrical war, we no longer know who is the powerful and who is the weakest,”
warns Étienne Blanc, rapporteur of the commission of inquiry.
We heard a lot that they had infinite means.”
“What we have seen in Marseille so far is the synthesis of several months of work,”
said Jérôme Durain, socialist president of this parliamentary commission of inquiry.
Catalyzed here are all the manifestations of drug trafficking which is increasingly aggressive and increasingly efficient, with action by public authorities which sometimes resembles guerrilla warfare from the weak to the strong.
The war is obviously not lost because we are not going to let it happen.
But it's trench warfare.
We must not leave any inch of ground to our adversaries who are resolute and dangerous.”
A
“
narcoville
”
plagued by drugs
Before the senators, responding to a question from Marseille senator Marie-Arlette Carlotti on the subject, the president of the Marseille judicial court, Olivier Leurent, confirmed the transformation of Marseille into a
“narcocity from afar”
.
According to statistics from the Bouches-du-Rhône police headquarters, in three years, 19 tonnes of cannabis have been seized.
No fewer than 2,350 traffickers were arrested in 2023, a figure up 10%.
The prefecture, however, affirms that 74 deal points have been definitively eliminated in Marseille in three years.
“Narcobanditism acts in Marseille as a sort of gangrene which damages the social fabric
,” underlines the president of the judicial court.
This gangrene is in fact based on the very significant poverty in Marseille, coupled with the abandonment of certain neighborhoods in the north of the city.
Parameters which favor the lasting establishment of drug trafficking in landlocked cities, notably devoid of regular public transport.
As a reminder, the population of the northern districts of Marseille is equivalent to the city of Lille.
“The observation that we all share is that public policies have been a failure for years in our territory
,” regrets Hassen Hammou.
The co-founder of the collective Too young to die, interviewed by the senators, calls in particular to
“re-equip the social centers which are today losing resources and are still, with the school, the last actors present in our territories”
or again
“rethink the issues of substandard housing, restore life and public service where there was none”
.
“It seems like nothing but that’s all, it’s what is conducive to the organization and installation of traffic in our cities
,” believes the man who is also spokesperson for EELV in Provence-Alpes -Côte d’Azur.
“Our neighborhoods today are in ruins
,” recalls Katia Yacoubi, also a member of the Too young to die collective.
We see these young people as thugs, as murderers, some of them have become so but they were not born that way
.
“There is no such thing as easy money,”
insists Hassen Hammou.
This money is not easy.
Most of the small hands in trafficking are no longer attracted by the lure of profit.
They are paid 50 euros to watch.
This trafficking is for some more a question of survival, when we know that 70% of young people do not have the baccalaureate in the northern districts and that in a district like La Castellane, 60% of the inhabitants are unemployed.
“Unbearable acts of barbarism”
During their hearings, the senators could only note the escalation of violence that Marseille has been facing for several years.
Last year, 49 people lost their lives to narchomicides, the highest number ever.
“What struck us like everyone else was the extent of the violence, and even to go further, the very nature of this violence,”
said rapporteur Étienne Blanc.
Unbearable acts of barbarity have been revealed to us.
There, we are affecting children, minors, at levels that have been unknown for a long time, reminiscent of a time when violence in France was not contained.”
The senator compares the current method of settling scores to the
“chauffeurs de la Drôme”
, named after the bandits who, at the beginning of the 20th century,
“tortured peasants to make them confess where they had hidden their gold.”
“What has been revealed to us reaches new heights,”
insists Étienne Blanc.
We are starting from a situation that we judged to be extremely serious.”
Homicides which are the consequence for the elected LR of
“rivalries between gangs”
, but also of
“the subjugation of a certain number of small hands who are supposed to behave badly towards their hierarchy and who unfortunately pay very, very dearly for it.”
Read alsoIn Marseille, families of victims of drug trafficking demand a monument in their memory
Normalized consumption
During their hearings, the senators identified one last problem.
“There is an obvious subject which relates to consumption,”
says the president of the parliamentary commission of inquiry Jérôme Durain.
Many consumers do not feel like they are committing an act of transgression.”
According to statistics from the Bouches-du-Rhône police headquarters, 53,000 criminal fixed fines have been issued since their creation in the department, or 13% of the national volume.
A situation which questions the president of the commission of inquiry.
“We were told that consumers had blood on their hands
,” recalls the socialist senator
.
At some point we will have to choose.
Either we consider that drug consumption is ultimately illegal, and we respect this prohibition.
Either we accept a form of moral tolerance.”
A reflection which will undoubtedly be at the heart of the report that the senators will submit next May.