Macron despairs at ‘lost’ battle against drug dealers
French president glum over prospects of ending ‘banlieue’ misery after new outbreaks of gang violence
FRANCE has lost the fight against drug dealing in many suburbs, President Emmanuel Macron warned yesterday as shocking images of masked gunmen opening fire in Marseille and a brutal daylight murder highlighted the uphill task he faces.
Amateur footage of police clashing with Kalashnikov-wielding gangsters in the southern port city came as the French president unveiled new measures for the country’s most deprived districts, many in banlieues or suburbs that encircle France’s major cities and have high unemployment and large immigrant populations.
Local officials in some of these areas say they are at a loss at how to tackle poverty, drug running and Islamic fundamentalism – many home-grown terrorists have come from such districts – with some mayors making waves in recent months by resigning saying their job had become too tough.
In a much-awaited speech on the banlieues, Mr Macron expressed “deep concern” about events in Marseille, where masked men in black armed with assault rifles were filmed opening fire on Monday.
After pulling up in three vehicles near a cultural centre in the Busserine district, they started shooting into the air, pointed their guns at locals and took one man hostage before engaging in a gun battle with police.
“According to a witness, one person was kidnapped and put in a car by people who fired in the air several times,” Xavier Tarabeux, the Marseille prosecutor, told reporters.
In another shocking incident, police in the southern city of Pau are investigating the murder of a 32-year-old man in another poverty stricken, high-immigration area, who was beaten to death by a gang of teenagers. Terrified witnesses, some picnicking with children early on Friday evening, have helped identify three suspects thought to have taken part in what Le Parisien called a “horrifying lynching”.
Critics have accused Mr Macron, 40, of glossing over France’s poorest areas since his election in May 2017, focusing instead on business and the rich.
France, he admitted, had “lost the battle against drug dealing in many housing estates”, pledging to finalise a plan to tackle the problem by July. He promised 1,300 “everyday local police officers” – community police officers – in 60 sensitive neighbourhoods by 2020. Gérard Collomb, the interior minister, promised to dispatch an extra 60 officers to Marseille by early next year in reaction to the latest violence.
Mr Macron confessed that Islamic radicalism had also “won in some neighbourhoods and is in the process of winning in others”. He promised to share information with local mayors on individuals who figure on a terror watch list and to step up the fight against racism and anti-semitism.