France vows to step up drugs fight after police vehicles torched

A police office stands guard in front of four police vehicles that were set on fire outside the Cavaillon police station in Cavaillon, near Avignon, on October 9, 2024. [AFP]

The French government on Wednesday vowed to intensify the fight against drug-related crime after four police vehicles were torched outside a police station in an apparent revenge attack in response to a new crackdown.

The four vehicles were reduced to burned-out wrecks outside the police station in the southern town of Cavaillon where security forces are now enforcing a nationwide operation against drugs crime.

Three police were present at the time when a group of individuals passed by in the early hours of the morning, local authorities said. No one was hurt.

The perpetrators have not been apprehended but regional prosecutor Florence Galtier said "all means would be used to arrest the perpetrators as quickly as possible."

France's new Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau, who has vowed an uncompromising approach on re-establishing order since taking office, said he was sending his deputy Nicolas Daragon to the town and as well as a special unit of CRS anti-riot police.

"The state will not be intimidated and we will intensify our fight against drug trafficking and banditry," he wrote on X.

"I will place the fight against organised crime at the centre of my work because it constitutes an attack on our institutions," he added.

Rare video

The government under new Prime Minister Michel Barnier, appointed last month by President Emmanuel Macron, is acutely are of the concerns among the French over how drug crime is crippling daily life in many parts of the country.

Marseille, France's second-largest city but also one of its poorest, is plagued by drug-related violence which last week saw a 15-year-old boy "stabbed 50 times" and burned alive and a 36-year-old delivery driver was shot and killed by a 14-year-old.

In a new development, a group of hooded individuals claiming to be the notorious drug cartel DZ Mafia issued a hugely unusual video on social media in which they denied any link with the two killings in Marseille which caused shock nationwide.

In the video, a man dressed in black and wearing a hood speaks in front of a lectern where "DZ Mafia" is written, surrounded by about fifteen men dressed in the same way.

In a distorted voice, the man "refuted the involvement of this organisation in the murders of a 15-year-old teenager and a driver committed between October 2 and 4, 2024 in Marseille," the Marseille prosecutor's office said.

It was not possible to authenticate the video. But this style of communication is totally new in France in the drugs world, with such videos usually associated with banned extremist groups.

French police earlier Wednesday said they had also arrested a leading member of the so-called Mocro Maffia, a cocaine-dealing gang operating mostly out of Belgium and the Netherlands.

The suspect, around 30 years old and a Moroccan national, has been the target of an international arrest warrant issued by the Netherlands.

The organisation with the Dutch-language nickname Mocro Maffia -- a reference to the group's Moroccan origins -- is suspected of distributing cocaine and synthetic drugs across Europe from its bases in the Netherlands and Belgium, and of having close links to the Latin American drug trade.