Appointed in July 2020 Place Beauvau, the Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, has made the fight against drug trafficking his priority.
In an interview with Le Parisien - Today in France, he takes stock of his action.
Nine months ago you made the fight against drug trafficking a priority.
What's your record?
GERALD DARMANIN.
We are in the process of regaining the ground.
And it is unprecedented.
We are fighting the battle on two fronts: supply and demand.
The offer, with the fight against international trafficking, wholesalers and all the points of deal that we have identified and targeted, but also by working on demand, with consumers and fixed tort fines (AFD) for the use of narcotics
(Editor's note: 200 euros and an entry in the criminal record file)
.
On fines, we are at 50,000 since the implementation in September.
For the month of February alone, which has just ended, 10,776 fines have been drawn up.
It is a record month when it only has 28 days.
Does this mean that demand remains strong?
Yes.
The proof is that in a year 2020 marked by confinement and curfew, drug seizures were very important.
Sometimes even up compared to previous years: 96 tonnes of cannabis, including 15 tonnes seized just for the month of November 2020. Thirteen tonnes of cocaine, 1.1 tonnes of heroin and 1.2 million ecstasy tablets .
The number of traffickers arrested is also increasing sharply and seizures of criminal assets have also increased.
We went from 78 million euros in 2019 to 82 million euros in 2020.
In your opinion, is this linked to the creation of the anti-narcotics office, OFAST?
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There is a whole device.
Before, the services worked in silos, the OFAST, wanted by the President of the Republic, it is the task-force in the service of a general anti-drug mobilization, a DEA
(the Drug Enforcement Administration in the United States)
French-style.
In each department, now, an operational narcotics intelligence unit coordinates the action.
This helped dismantle 12,622 networks last year.
OFAST, this represents 4000 pieces of information received, transmitted and more than 2000 notes subsequently written on drug trafficking.
It is the demonstration that the intelligence services also have for objective to fight against this crime.
All this work, carried out jointly with the Keeper of the Seals and the Minister of Public Accounts, made it possible to place 892 people in police custody.
An example of this reinforced territorial network: we have dismantled an important farm dedicated to cannabis cultivation in the Eure, in a remote rural area, following a report from the local gendarmes.
“The dealers have armed themselves a lot,” notes Gerald Darmanin, who observes “a militarization of drug trafficking”.
/ LP / Arnaud Journois
In September, you identified 3952 deal points in France, how many have been dismantled?
Four hundred and fifty.
And we will step up the pace.
We started “on the north face” by targeting the most sensitive cities and districts: the Parisian area, Lille, Lyon, Marseille and Toulouse mainly.
In Marseille, we are deploying 300 additional police officers.
We have just carried out an operation in the Félix-Pyat district at the beginning of March.
A place where it was said that the police never intervened again.
We put 200 police officers on the ground to neutralize this point of deal, which had existed since the creation of this city.
There was a violent reaction from about fifteen people, and two officers were slightly injured.
In retaliation, threats of attack from the local police station were made and the same evening the building was targeted with fireworks.
One of the perpetrators of these shots was arrested: the brother of one of the two delinquents arrested that same afternoon.
My instructions are clear: you have to go everywhere.
Precisely, these attacks on the police do you attribute them to the fight against drug trafficking?
There is a clear link between drug trafficking and violence.
But not only against the police.
Do you think of settling scores and brawls between gangs?
In any case, all the settling of scores committed during the summer were related to drug trafficking, with the exception of the violent episodes that occurred in Dijon with the Chechen community.
It is a concern and, at the same time, the consequence of the work carried out by the police on the ground.
It is also a kind of thermometer of activity against these networks.
There is a very strong link between this violence and drugs.
Last year, violence between traffickers left more than 250 injured, half of whom are under 25, and 60 dead.
A point of deal, today, it is between 20,000 and 80,000 euros of turnover in cash per day, the stakes are therefore very high for traffickers.
The scarcity of the product, as well as the work of the police who made more seizures, raised prices, but also the risk factor in the delivery of the goods.
Are there also the weapons?
The dealers armed themselves a lot too.
For example, in November 2019, when traffic was dismantled, 8% of those arrested were carrying firearms.
Today it is 22%.
This is proof of the militarization of drug trafficking.
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Drug trafficking: France has 3,952 deal points
Is there still a law of silence in these neighborhoods?
Less and less, and I'm happy about it.
This is the whole point of the reporting platform put in place (moncommissariat.fr and the digital police force of the gendarmerie).
And this one works, since we have received over a thousand reports since its launch on March 1.
The information can sometimes be very precise.
The French want to tell us things.
The inhabitants of the affected neighborhoods have understood our mission and they participate more.
The police officers on the ground are witnesses to this phenomenon of fed up with local residents.
It is also a consequence of the appearance in these networks of people from outside the neighborhoods, sometimes even foreigners in an irregular situation.
These people live like slaves, and they are asked to operate deal points for several days in cities they do not know, then they move to another location.
Does this mean that the traffickers' methods adapt to the circumstances?
Between March and June, a period of confinement, the traffic collapsed.
In particular because of the stoppage of air traffic and the limitation of road traffic.
But, in reality, this traffic has transformed with the development of home delivery.
We have seen platforms arrive on social networks such as Snapchat to place orders and, then, deliveries with scooters, motorcycles or even cars.
There are also deliveries by post.
Seizures on this vector have doubled last year.
Recently, a 30 kg parcel of cannabis was seized at the Lille-Lesquin (Nord) sorting center, and 17 kg of cocaine, this time in a parcel in Lyon (Rhône), from Uruguay.
This forces us to better monitor these new digital frontiers by doing more cyber patrols.
Customs, with Olivier Dussopt
(Minister Delegate in charge of Public Accounts, Editor's note)
, is also doing a tremendous job.
The dealers have also adapted by "sausage" their activities.
They carry less and less product on them, but this requires more employees for the same traffic.
In Marseille, for example, “banana bags” have come back into fashion.
Every morning, the dealers come to get their bag which contains the necessary for half a day of sales.
If they get arrested, the quantities are smaller, as much in drugs as in cash ...
"Let's stop accepting the worldly consumption of drugs", says Gérald Darmanin, who wants controls of deliveries to scooters or motorbikes in more "upscale" neighborhoods ./ LP / Arnaud Journois
Your action also targets consumers.
Thanks to the AFD, the fixed tort fines, can we draw up a precise map of this consumption, and a profile of the customers?
I asked for a more detailed analysis of this question.
First of all, there is local consumption by residents of these working-class neighborhoods.
But there is also a more bourgeois population which consumes and which, for its part, is delivered to their homes.
The instruction that I gave, in particular to the Paris police headquarters, is also to be present in the more “upscale” neighborhoods to control these deliveries by scooter or motorbike.
Let’s stop accepting worldly drug use.
In your war against trafficking, do you also count on elected officials?
We are going to suggest to the 100 mayors most concerned to work closely with us.
Because we also need them for more social work, in order to get some consumers out of their addictions, to work on going back to school.
It is also essential in terms of town planning and development.
As a former mayor, I know the importance of working with elected officials.
If a deal point is dismantled in a building, action must be taken immediately, otherwise a squat will fill the empty space or new traffic will take place.
We also have a subject on schools.
Very often deal points are located near or even inside schools, where classrooms are used as storage or hiding places.
In a school, for example, dealers had hidden part of their stock of cannabis in a pommel horse where they came to use when they needed it.
Everyone knew, but the terrified staff were helpless.
In the schools among the most affected, we will strengthen, with Jean-Michel Blanquer, video protection and surrounding controls.
To fight against these highly organized teams, you also need equipment.
Where are we with the use of drones?
This will be debated this week in the Senate as part of the review of the Comprehensive Security Bill.
For the moment, for lack of a legislative framework, they are in the garage.
But just like video protection, it is an important weapon.
For monitoring deal points, but also for monitoring two-wheelers or certain vehicles carrying drugs.
There is in France today a refusal to comply every 30 minutes.
It is often directly linked to the traffic.
The drone will make it possible to follow these offenders in complete safety and to avoid accidents and tragedies.
From this summer, I hope, we will be able to use these drones.
I also hope that the municipal police will be empowered to issue fixed fines, which would increase our forces tenfold.
Occupation of building halls continues even during confinement or curfew ...
It is a crime, but it is difficult to repress since no one testifies.
So we are going to put in place in October, there too, a system of flat-rate fines, which will make it possible to verbalize but also to register these controlled people in the criminal record file and thus better identify those who work as little hands in the networks.
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Drug trafficking: when dealers from Ile-de-France are acting in the provinces
In Paris, the consumption of crack remains a recurring problem ...
The problem with crack is that it is very addictive.
The effects on physical and mental health are devastating and the deterioration of those who use is rapid and often inevitable.
It is a drug addiction that particularly affects people already weakened, coming from the working classes and sometimes an illegal immigrant population.
The intervention and the role of the police are very complicated.
There are seizures and dealers arrested every day, but it is a very easy drug to manufacture.
We have to work with the medical and social corps of the affected cities to be able to provide support that is not just police.
You talk about prevention.
Does your battle plan include a preventive component?
Yes, and we need to be more effective in prevention.
We haven't won the battle yet to explain that drugs are really crap.
The Prime Minister has given his agreement to launch a vast communication campaign on the subject.
There has not been any since the beginning of the 1980s. We must demonstrate the absolute harmfulness of narcotics in dropping out of school, in psychological illnesses, in domestic violence, in road accidents.
More than 500 people die each year in an accident involving at least one driver under the influence of drugs.
Often times, drug use goes with alcohol consumption.
In the Comprehensive Safety Law, one of the objectives is to make testing for cannabis as easy and effective as testing for alcohol.
Drugs are not a sympathetic product.
Drugs are death.
