“The fight against drug trafficking requires something other than ready-made formulas”

TRIBUNE – Thursday October 31 shortly before 11 p.m., three men parked their vehicle in the Couronneries district of Poitiers. A few minutes later, they opened fire against the terrace of a restaurant, for a nebulous story of drug trafficking territory. Anis, a fifteen-year-old child, will spend his short life there, with a bullet in the head.

A few days earlier, a deputy was arrested while purchasing synthetic drugs in Paris and immediately recognized his problematic addiction. In November 2023, a senator is indicted for having administered ecstasy to a deputy with the aim of abusing her. In Marseille, there will be around fifty deaths in 2023, most of them young people, directly linked to drug trafficking. In February 2023, a well-known comedian causes a terrible road accident under the influence of numerous substances and without having slept for three days…

A global and systemic problem

Other examples? Useless… drugs are everywhere, on all floors, in all walks of life. It is a fact of society, a gangrene which has been introduced, developed and spread. It is sometimes perceived as festive, harmless… like alcohol or tobacco. It is often destructive. It is always, always, the heart of a gigantic global market, of a clash of the giants of crime.

“It would be deadly and naive to consider that only repression, obviously essential, will protect us from this scourge in the medium and long term. »

France is at a crossroads: drug trafficking can quickly transform us into a narco-state, outdated and vulnerable to the power of the networks. At issue: the unpreparedness of the State, the underestimation of the threat and the blatant lack of resources which have led us to a terrible imbalance in the balance of power with the offenders who often bring death. It would also be deadly and naive to consider that only repression, obviously essential, will protect us from this scourge in the medium and long term. The problem is global and systemic, the response can only be too.

It is not a question here of saying that nothing is being done, and we must salute the unfailing commitment of the police, gendarmes, social workers and especially local elected officials who are at the heart of local strategies and know how to mobilize everyone actors, from repression to prevention, because the fight against drug trafficking is a global, systemic, holistic fight. But we cannot hold a mayor responsible for the terrible consequences that drug trafficking causes in the public spaces of our cities and sometimes our villages.

The recent report from the Court of Auditors on the “Marseille en grand” plan – a superb exercise in “mechanical rolling” of the President of the Republic – perfectly illustrates the failure of the government. It details the weaknesses of the judicial police, the absence of a unified, coordinated and coherent strategy, the balance of power between justice and offenders, the disastrous and worrying state of our prisons, unworthy of a great democracy like ours, the blatant failure of all-repressive measures, the glaring absence of real prevention strategies.

Behind the chin-ups of Gérald Darmanin and Emmanuel Macron, the reality of the means is often less flourishing than proclaimed.

For a National Anti-Narcotics Prosecutor’s Office

Our country is today in urgent need of measures which are slow to be put in place. The first of these is probably to rearm the judicial police in terms of resources and administrative organization. PJ has never ceased to prove its effectiveness. Most often in the shadows, « brigades du Tigre » prey on the so-called high end of the crime spectrum, the seasoned thugs who travel between Dubai and Europe and distribute their instructions in complete discretion. It also handles acts of terrorism. Its territorial coverage allows it to be particularly efficient and responsive in dealing with all forms of organized crime. Gérald Darmanin’s reform imposed a more restricted border – the department – in the face of delinquents who know none. It was a terrible mistake. We must prevent it from being fatal to us.

“Behind the chin-thumping of Gérald Darmanin and Emmanuel Macron, the reality of the means is often less flourishing than proclaimed. »

Likewise, it is necessary to impose a leader, within the national police, who can concentrate and harmonize the processing of all information concerning drug trafficking. The Anti-Narcotics Office (Ofast) can perfectly fulfill this essential role. At the same time, it is now urgent and necessary to create a National Anti-Narcotics Prosecutor’s Office (Pnast), based on the model of the National Anti-Terrorism Prosecutor’s Office or the National Financial Prosecutor’s Office. The issues are of the same order.

Do not fall into excessive guilt

Furthermore, we can continue to deplore the presence of minors in the clutches of organized networks for a long time if we do not finally support, in line with the immense needs, the Judicial Protection of Youth (PJJ).

Finally, France must address the issue of consumption today in a constructive and adult manner. We must move away from debates which sometimes touch on schizophrenia: there is obviously no question of encouraging the consumption of any narcotic whatsoever, in an era where the search for responsible consumption is encouraged for food, textiles , digital. But conversely, there is no point in turning a blind eye and falling into outrageous guilt as the Minister of the Interior, Bruno Retailleau, does, even though the practices are very diverse. Denying the possibility of recreational use in a Europe where the legalization and decriminalization of certain drugs is spreading would be vain.

As we can see, the fight against drug trafficking requires something other than ready-made formulas and positioning that is more strategic than reasonable. It requires a level of perspective, rapid consideration of all dimensions of the debate: police, social, societal, health and prevention.

This article is signed by Jerome Durain (socialist senator from Saône-et-Loire, president of the senatorial commission of inquiry into drug trafficking), Roger Vicot (deputy from the North, national secretary of the Socialist Party for security), Marie-Arlette Carlotti (socialist senator from Bouches-du-Rhône), Boris Vallaud (MP for Landes, president of the Socialists and Related Group), Patrick children (senator from the North, president of the Socialist, Ecologist and Republican group), Olivier Faure (MP for Seine-et-Marne and First Secretary of the PS).