Emmanuel Macron affirmed, this Tuesday March 19, in Marseille not to “give in to any speech of defeat” in the face of drug trafficking, at the start of a vast police operation which has already resulted in “more than 82 arrests and around sixty guards on sight” since Monday.
Speaking to the press after more than two hours of wandering in the city of Castellane, the Head of State announced that it was “the first in a series of around ten operations” Clear space ‘called ‘XXL'” which must extend over several weeks. “Drug trafficking is a growing scourge” and “the situation is very difficult”, “in Marseille” as in “more and more cities, including medium-sized towns”, he said in this sensitive district from the north of the Phocaean city. “Yes, drugs are our enemy,” he insisted, promising to put in place new measures to “make life impossible for users, make life impossible for the families of the youngest who serve as lookouts.”
“Pound the territory”
The Head of State assured that his action since 2017 has already “had results” in Marseille, with “deal points which have melted” in “several districts”. According to him, the “Place Net” operations, which he said he wanted to systematize during his major press conference in mid-January, are “unprecedented”. He detailed the progress of the searches: “Based on the in-depth work that has been carried out for years, we identified the cases that were known, the people […] which we know make life impossible for a neighborhood, from the network heads to their most local relays.
This “pre-judicialization” of the files then made it possible to target these “very dangerous criminals” by mobilizing “nearly 900 police forces, gendarmerie and customs officers” since Monday in Marseille to “shell the territory, to fight against these dealers , these traffickers, these criminal networks, these killers, these car traffickers” for several weeks, he added.
Emmanuel Macron’s visit comes as several raids have recently taken place within the two main gangs, DZ Mafia and Yoda, who are vying for control of drug trafficking in France’s second city. Félix Bingui, 33, alias “the cat”, the alleged leader of the “Yoda” clan, was arrested in Morocco at the beginning of March.