France sends elite police unit to Marseille in bid to quell drug violence

French Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin on Thursday announced that a unit from the elite CRS 8 police force that specialises in fighting urban violence is to be deployed to Marseille. The southern port has been plagued by gang violence over control of the city's drug trade.

Police checkpoint in search of drug traffickers in Cité des Rosiers, a northern district of Marseille, on 31 March, 2023. © PHOTO AFP / CHRISTOPHE SIMON

"On my instruction, CRS 8 will be deployed as reinforcements in Marseille to carry out target operations against drug trafficking over the next few days," Darmanin posted on the social media platform X (formerly Twitter).

The ministry said the unit would stay in Marseille for about a week with the aim of carrying out hard-hitting operations against drug trafficking, particularly at notorious dealing points.

The move comes after the shooting deaths of at least eight people since the beginning of August.

A total of 36 people have lost their lives in France's second-largest city since the start of the year as a result of drug violence.

That's more than the 31 gunshot deaths – linked to narcotics – recorded in the Bouches-du-Rhône department for the whole of last year.

Sur mon instruction, la CRS 8 sera déployée en renfort à Marseille afin d’y mener des opérations ciblées contre les trafics de drogue au cours des prochains jours.

— Gérald DARMANIN (@GDarmanin) August 17, 2023

Shot dead at point-blank range

"They're getting younger and younger, more and more determined, more and more eager to get out of misery and earn money with colossal sums to be made," Marc La Mola, a former police officer with the anti-organised crime brigade, told France 3 radio. 

This comes as a 26-year-old man was killed on Tuesday in Marseille's Maison Blanche district.

Witnesses said the gunman came on foot and fired several shots from a Kalashnikov rifle at point-blank range before leaving on a motorcycle.

Five people were arrested and taken into custody.

Marseille : un homme tué par balle en début de soirée dans le 14ᵉ arrondissement de Marseille, des suspects interpellés https://t.co/Uzib1LN4rV pic.twitter.com/en5tDxbC51

— France 3 Provence (@France3Provence) August 16, 2023

Vicious circle for school drop-outs

A recent investigation undertaken by FranceInfo found that although many young people involved in the violence come from neighbourhoods plagued by drug trafficking, not all of them were from Marseilles.

"We also have young people from all over France to recruit lookout scouts given there are invitations to tender made via social networks, notably SnapChat," Rudy Manna, departmental secretary of the Alliance police union, said.

"Prices are extremely attractive in Marseilles, which means that it's a magnet for 13-, 14- and 15-year-olds who get involved in drug trafficking. These are often idle youngsters, almost all of whom have dropped out of school."

Once caught up in the spiral of trafficking, young people are at the mercy of the network and find themselves isolated and helpless. 

To escape, some surrender to the police.

• Three dead in Marseille shootout: 'guns are too easy to buy' says mayor

Police tactics 'counter-productive'

Violence between rival gangs is reportedly an indirect consequence of the police's "shelling" strategy, which destabilises the drug trafficking networks.

So-called "strike force operations" undertaken in 2022 at the request of Darmanin saw 39 dealing points dismantled and over five tonnes of cannabis seized.

Critics have denounced this method is ineffective because arresting the small players involved in trafficking will not put an end to the cycle of violence.

According to Hassen Hammou, president of the Too Young to Die NGO, the occasional occupation of neighborhoods by CRS vehicles is something the trafficking networks have gotten used to.

#Marseille compte ses victimes…Déjà 30morts et autant de blessés par balles. Ici un homme de 40 ans bd National pic.twitter.com/3iYudWFJPj

— Hassen Hammou (@HammouHassen) July 28, 2023

"That's where I say that Darmanin's [reaction] has its limits," Hassan told the FranceInfo investigation.

"We all know – NGO leaders and residents alike – that the real organisers of trafficking in our neighbourhoods are abroad. Instructions are given long-distance. The manpower they use at a distance is none of their business. Their business is that their networks run."

Hassan said police raids were a deliberate strategy to give the impression the state was taking action.

NGOs have been lobbying lawmakers to open a parliamentary commission of inquiry for a proper evaluation of the French state's intervention in neighbourhoods affected by drug crime.