France’s nationwide terrorism workplace has launched an investigation right into a wave of apparently coordinated assaults at a number of prisons throughout the nation believed to be linked to a authorities clampdown on drug traffickers.
Gunmen with automated weapons opened fireplace on the doorway to Toulon jail in southern France within the early hours of Tuesday, whereas in current days automobiles have been set alight outdoors 4 different jails, and in Marseille a residential constructing housing jail guards was attacked.
The assaults got here because the French parliament prepares to approve a brand new legislation growing the facility of police investigating drug sellers, toughening jail situations for convicted traffickers and creating a brand new prosecutors’ workplace answerable for investigating organised crime.
Hovering cocaine imports from South America to Europe have sparked drug-linked violence in France, the place seizures of the drug are at a historic excessive, police say. The drug gangs historically based mostly in cities comparable to Marseille have expanded into smaller regional cities unused to drug violence.
The justice minister, Gérald Darmanin, was as a result of go to Toulon jail on Tuesday afternoon in a present of solidarity with employees. Darmanin stated he was decided to stamp out drug kingpins’ capability to function from behind bars and had ordered the constructing of two new high-security jails to carry greater than 700 prisoners.
“Makes an attempt have been made to intimidate employees in a number of prisons starting from burning autos to firing automated weapons. The French Republic is going through as much as the issue of drug trafficking and taking measures that may massively disrupt the prison networks,” Darmanin wrote on X.
He added: “The Republic is confronted with drug trafficking and is taking measures that may deeply disturb prison networks. It’s being challenged and can be agency and brave.”
Prisons in Marseille, Aix-en-Provence, Valence, Nîmes, Luynes, Villepinte and Nanterre have been additionally focused. Employees unions stated burnt autos had been present in jail automobile parks for a number of days within the runup to what seemed to be Monday evening’s coordinated assault. Vehicles have additionally been set alight outdoors the Nationwide Faculty of Jail Administration.
The laws earlier than the French parliament would permit prisons to carry convicted drug sellers in isolation, deprive them of collective walks and entry to household life models, faucet their telephones and restrict calls. Darmanin has additionally proposed giving the justice minister the facility to determine whether or not solitary confinement orders – which should presently be renewed each three months – will be utilized for as much as 4 years, and utilized not solely to convicted drug traffickers but additionally these awaiting trial.
The appointment of the Nationwide Anti-Terrorism Prosecutor’s Workplace (PNAT) to supervise the investigation, versus the organised crime unit, suggests police imagine the assaults stands out as the work of a militant group. PNAT stated it will be working with the nation’s inside intelligence company.
The inside minister, Bruno Retailleau, stated the assaults have been “unacceptable” and ordered elevated police safety of prisons and employees.
In February – as he introduced file cocaine seizures of 47 tonnes within the first 11 months of final yr, greater than double that seized in 2023 – Retailleau stated France had been hit by a “white tsunami” that had rewritten the principles of the prison panorama.
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