“We are losing the war. » Before the Senate commission of inquiry into drug trafficking, on Tuesday March 5, the judges of Marseille made a very worrying inventory of the impact of the drug networks that plague the second largest city in France, even recalling the concept of “Narcoville”. The explosive increase in the number of drug-related attacks and attempts in 2023, with around fifty dead and 123 injured, illustrates how this is happening, according to Olivier Leurent, president of the Court “The war is asymmetrical between the state, which finds itself in a precarious position, and the traffickers, who have significant financial, human, technological and even legislative resources.”.

If drug trafficking is not Marseille’s prerogative, the city is in the eyes of the judges “the epicenter where it manifests itself in its most violent form and damages the social fabric day after day”. Publicly, these discreet players in the justice system revealed what was being whispered in the halls of the courthouse. With increasingly new methods of recruiting murderers via social networks, the risks to judges’ own safety have increased.

Two years ago, when he interviewed the judges on the front lines against drug trafficking, Olivier Leurent was told that there was no sense of danger. This is no longer the case today and, the judge adds, “In Marseille, no one has forgotten the symbolic figure of Pierre Michel”, investigating judge who was murdered by a young team of heroin traffickers in October 1981. Mr Leurent therefore demands “a “Marshall Plan” for the fight against drug trafficking, like the fight against domestic violence, because our rule of law and republican stability are at stake”.

Advocacy for a “very tough prison regime”

In this war, one battle seems to have already been lost: that of prison, where drugs and cell phones are finding their way in large numbers. “Detention has become a real problem because it no longer puts an end to the activities of network leaders. regrets Isabelle Fort, head of the organized crime department of the Marseille public prosecutor’s office. Even with ten arrest warrants, they continue to sponsor assassinations or manage their businesses as if they were on the outside. » Recently, a cell’s sound system made it possible to record the order to commit an assassination attempt.

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