PARIS (AP) 鈥� 鈥淓very day, people pay the price for the drugs you buy.鈥�
Amid record cocaine seizures and deadly shootings, the slogan is simple and aims to raise awareness among France鈥檚 millions of recreational drug users that their habits are fuelling gang violence and death.
With its new campaign against drug use and trafficking, the not only wants to make society aware, but also to make it clear that users will be punished.
鈥淚 want to break with this logic of victimisation, which consists of presenting drug users exclusively as victims of an addiction,鈥� Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau told reporters on Thursday at the launch of an anti-drugs campaign.
鈥淚 am not the health minister. For there to be supply, there must be users,鈥� said Retailleau. adding that he wanted users to feel guilty because they are accomplices of traffickers.
In 2024, the French authorities recorded 367 cases of murder or attempted murder, with 341 people injured and 110 deaths linked to drug trafficking. Of the 176 individuals jailed for murder and attempted murder, more than 25% were aged under 20, including 16 minors. In all, 47 tonnes of cocaine had been seized in 2024, more than double the previous year鈥檚 total.
鈥淥ur security forces are working hard, they are fighting back,鈥� Retailleau said. 鈥淏ut it鈥檚 a flood. It鈥檚 a white tsunami of cocaine.鈥�
The campaign launched this month follows the announcement last year in Marseille - the southern port city plagued by gang violence - of a plan to boost police and courts resources in their fight against organized crime, and of the planned appointment of a liaison magistrate in Colombia, which is one of the main cocaine producing countries alongside Peru and Bolivia.
The French authorities are particularly worried by the recruitment of minors by mafia networks who use them because they know they will receive lighter sentences. In 2023, 19% of drug trafficking suspects were minors, some as young as 12 or 13.
Retailleau cited the case of a five-year-old boy who survived being shot twice in the head after a 16-year-old teenager opened fire in the city of Rennes. He also mentioned a 14-year-old in Marseille who was hired by traffickers and killed a taxi driver, and spoke of another teenager who was stabbed 50 times, and then burnt alive in the same city.
鈥淎t the end of the joint, at the end of the coke line, there鈥檚 the barrel of the gun that kills,鈥� he said. 鈥淚f you smoke a joint, if you snort a line of coke, you鈥檝e got blood on your hands."
Retailleau said demand for cocaine is at an all-time high, with 1.1 million people in having used the product at least once in 2023. Cannabis remains the most commonly used drug in France, with 5 million users in 2023, and the use of MDMA and ecstasy is also on the rise. He rejected the idea of legalizing cannabis because it 鈥渨ould not sort anything,鈥� he said, claiming that the experiment in other countries did not stop illegal trafficking.
According to the statistical service for Internal Security, 62% of drug offenders caught using drugs were fined in 2023. Retailleau vowed to continue to make users pay, saying the number of fines rose by 8% in January.
Samuel Petrequin, The Associated Press
