Video of Grenoble’s armed drug dealers sparks fear of crimewave
VIDEO footage showing drug dealers openly carrying assault rifles in Grenoble, in south-east France, sparked outrage yesterday as concern rose over a crimewave in holiday towns during the summer.
Prosecutors opened an investigation after national television channels broadcast the videos, posted on social media and authenticated by police.
The footage was seen as the latest manifestation of what many local politicians describe as a breakdown of law and order in France’s most deprived urban neighbourhoods.
The mayor of Grenoble urged the government to send extra police to the prosperous “capital of the Alps”.
Grenoble is considered one of the country’s most pleasant provincial cities but it has been hit by a series of gangland shoot-outs that have left three dead and several injured. Marseille is notorious for its gang wars but gun crime is becoming increasingly common in other French cities. The Grenoble videos were posted by drug traffickers with the intention of scaring off rivals with a display of firepower, said a police source.
The footage shows gunmen, wearing balaclavas over their faces, holding what appear to Kalashnikov-style assault weapons. They stand guard while a dealer is shown sitting at a table in the open air apparently selling drugs. It was impossible to identify any of the individuals filmed.
The videos were filmed beside a playground in Grenoble’s Mistral district, according to police sources. Children can be seen nearby.
A turf war in the neighbourhood was fuelled by the early release of convicts during the coronavirus lockdown in an attempt to stem infections in prisons, the sources said.
Other French cities plagued by gang violence this summer include Nice and Toulon, on the Riviera, and Bordeaux. Even the calm of Brittany, has been shattered by shoot-outs in Rennes. Several city mayors want more police, saying local forces were insufficient.
Amira, a Toulon resident, said a bullet came through the window of her flat and lodged in the wall of her livingroom, where she looks after her four grandchildren. She said drug lords, who are barely out of their teens, were terrorising residents of her estate.
“They settle their scores with competitors by shooting them and they don’t seem to care if other people are caught in the middle,” said Amira, 62.
Maud Tavel, the deputy mayor of Grenoble, said: “I’m thinking about the families, the children, the people who work in the [Mistral] district. We are reiterating our request [to central government] for police reinforcements which we believe are essential.”