Around fifty elected officials call in a forum for a “national plan” against drug trafficking

A collective of around fifty elected officials, including the mayor of Lille, Martine Aubry, the mayor of Nice, Christian Estrosi, and the mayor of Marseille, Benoît Payan, are calling for “a national and European plan” against drug trafficking, in a column published Thursday September 21 in The world. “There is not a month during which the news is not punctuated by news items against a backdrop of drug trafficking”underline the elected officials, gathered within the Urban France association.

“This scourge is no longer specific to certain large cities”they write, asserting that “more than 70 victims linked to drug trafficking have already been recorded by the Ministry of the Interior since the beginning of 2023”. Elected officials propose five measures to combat drug trafficking, for “national and local plans (…) more concrete and more effective”. They therefore call for “launch a real national and European plan”, “generalize investigations into assets and fully attack the wallets of traffickers”but also to “further support communities and generalize experiments”.

“We must not choose between prevention, education and firmness”

The collective is also asking for more resources and wishes “further territorialize the means of justice according to demographic pressure and the number of crimes observed”. They finally launch a call to “a sustainable public health policy” which would “drop demand”. “We must not choose between prevention, education and firmness”they estimate.

“For many months, we have been warning about the slowness of investigations, the lack of resources and the seriousness of the situation”justify the elected officials, declaring however that the “government announcements and the increase in budgets allocated to internal security and justice are going in the right direction”.