For many centuries in Morlaix, a stone-built town with creperies on the Breton coast of France, the most famous merchants were those who traded in linen during the Renaissance and built several unique wooden houses in the middle of the town.
New vendors are another story.
France, long Europe's biggest market for illegal drugs, is facing a new explosion of concern about its domestic drug trade, and the violence that often accompanies it. Experts say that in the past few years the illegal drug trade has become more noticeable in small and medium-sized cities in France, causing a certain insecurity in areas that once felt sleepy and safe. Morlaix, with a population of about 15,000, is among them.
“We are facing a wave of cocaine – something new,” said Jean-Paul Vermot, the mayor.
On a recent morning, Mr. Vermot visited Morlaix, proudly pointing out its magnificent marina, the balcony of the City Hall where General Charles de Gaulle gave a speech in July 1945 and the converted 18th century tobacco factory. cultural center.
He also showed a park bench where, he said, a group of young sellers three years ago threatened to kill him and burn down his house. He pointed to a public housing complex where he said drugs had recently been sold openly before the police operation. He pointed out the door of the apartment still riddled with bullet holes, the latest attempt by a group of young salesmen to intimidate another young man with debts.
Faced with what has been called a “simultaneous explosion” in the supply and demand for illegal drugs, French officials across the country are adopting proposals to combat traffickers. Cautious politicians have resorted to blaming consumers, including marijuana smokers, for supporting the deadly industry while other US and European governments have legalized or legalized marijuana.
Whether this all amounts to France's new war on drugs remains to be seen, given the tense political climate in the country. France's centre-right national government collapsed last month after disagreements over the 2025 budget. A new government, of almost identical politics, was announced just before Christmas.
Its interior minister, Bruno Retailleau, has participated in the former and is an outspoken architect of the proposed anti-narcotics program. The minister of justice, Gérald Darmanin, recently said that he wants to detain the 100 drug traffickers who are currently in solitary confinement, “like he does with terrorists.”
It is clear that any future discussion about drug policy will not be confined to the hot spots of Paris or Marseille, France's second largest city and the epicenter of organized crime.
Now, more than ever, there is talk of drugs in “La France profonde,” or “deep France,” those slow-moving areas where some important part of the nation's soul is believed to reside. In May, a report by the French Senate found that “the increase in human trafficking in rural and urban areas” was “accompanied by a surprising and disturbing outbreak of violence, sometimes turning the population into warlike situations.”
Mr. Retailleau said that French drug trafficking has a country on the brink of “Mexicanization,” a term that seems to refer to the loss of government control over public safety, the corruption of government officials and the increasing prominence of drug gangs in public life. . Some experts consider the language to be exaggerated. But many agree that the spate of horrific episodes far away in major cities is a new cause for concern.
In October, a 5-year-old child was shot twice in Pacé, a small town near Rennes, during a drug-related car chase. In November, a 15-year-old boy was shot in the head during a shootout between drug gangs in Poitiers, a city of 90,000 people in central-western France.
The newspaper Le Parisien last month reported that five people were identified as suspects in the June armed kidnapping of a 77-year-old woman in Trévoux, a town of 7,000 people north of Lyon, as part of a drug racket against her. the son.
All these episodes have been slowed down by recent problems in Marseille, an old Mediterranean port caught late in the gang wars that have killed dozens of people in the last three years, and we have seen the rise of a new generation of contract killers.
In November in Marseille, Mr. Retailleau and the minister of justice at the time, Didier Migaud, who leaned to the left, put forward plans to fight the war on drugs. Among them was a proposal for a national prosecutor's office and special courts dealing with organized crime; more police; and the appointment of a new “communications magistrate” in Bogotá, Colombia.
But when he visited Rennes after the shooting of a 5-year-old child, Mr. Retailleau also laid another blame on users: “You who smoke joints, who take rails of coke,” he said, “it tastes good. of tears, and above all, of blood.”
Many types of illegal drugs are available in France, but cannabis and cocaine are the most common. Lawmakers find the latter particularly problematic.
In France, and in Europe in general, cocaine trafficking began to intensify in the late 1980s, when the drug market in the United States became saturated, and the United States officials began to cut down on cocaine. A report by the European Union Drugs Agency last year noted that Europe's cocaine seizures now exceed those of the United States.
Jérôme Durain, a French senator who is the author of the Senate report and the president of the Senate commission investigating drug trafficking, said the spread of the drug trade in small towns is the inevitable result of big city gangs looking to expand into new markets. . He said technology has helped with the rise of “Uberization,” which allows rural people to order drugs by cell phone.
“It's like 30 years ago, when I was young, there was a McDonald's in Paris,” said Mr. Durain in conversation. “Now you have them everywhere.”
Mr. Vermot, the mayor of Morlaix, said that hard drugs have become more prevalent there. Recent police patrols of the popular site, he said, have identified users from all walks of life. “Business owners, workers, workers, professionals and people living on the outskirts – we really had a whole range of people coming to buy, with this new state of cocaine availability,” he said.
Mr. Vermot noted that Morlaix's public houses were well maintained and well integrated into the neighborhoods of the wealthy residents. This is not the case in other large French cities, where poor people huddled on the streets, or in the suburbs, may feel isolated from the city center and the general economic background.
In a compact city, he said, this means that he is quick to hear neighbors' complaints.
“Living together actually allows us to reduce, reduce, avoid a certain number of social problems,” he said, including when new vendors start problems.
Morlaix is far from a crime-ridden city. In a country that strictly restricts access to firearms, its problems may seem strange by American standards. Its residents are aware of the problem, but not all of them support the demolition.
Aurélien Cariou, 48, a night watchman, said he suspects the proposed drug policy is discriminatory against people of color, who often live in poor areas of France. Getting tough on cannabis, in particular, he said, looks like an excuse to “beat the heads of Moroccans and Algerians.”
Daniel Ricoul, 55, who owns a cosmetics shop in the city center, said the government needs to deal with crime with a heavy hand. “You need to be strong,” he said.
Mr. Durain, a senator, is like a mayor, a member of the Socialist Party. He said he has spoken to many mayors who are still biased across the country who agree with many of the proposed changes to the program because they know there is a problem. If there is buy-in for the proposals from the left and the right, it could give the pending anti-drug bill legs in a badly divided legislature that can't seem to agree on much else.
Mr. Vermot, the mayor, said that some of the city's problems have subsided as people have recently been arrested. But he knows he's in for a long fight. He said he likes some of the ideas that would give law enforcement more tools to go after traffickers and smugglers. But he is worried that conservatives who want to shore up France's ballooning debt will cut social programs that help curb the drug world's problems.
Nevertheless, he said: “We must be honest. It's a problem. And we have to continue to deal with it. “
Ségolène Le Stradic contributed reporting from Paris.
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