INFO FRANCEINFO. Assassinations, assassination attempts between criminals and settling of scores in France increased by 38% in 2023

According to exclusive information from franceinfo, 418 people paid the price last year for these acts compared to 303 in 2022.

Assassinations, assassination attempts between criminals and settling of scores in France increased by 38% in 2023 compared to 2022, Franceinfo revealed exclusively on Thursday March 21. According to the final figures, 418 people paid the price last year for these assassinations between gangsters, attempted murders between criminals and settling of scores, compared to 303 in 2022.

In its census, the judicial police clearly distinguish between murders, attempted murders between delinquents and settling of scores: the latter designate assassinations between well-identified criminal groups, with a professional operating mode, with the aim of weakening the opponent. In 2023, there will be 85 compared to 67 in 2022, or 20% more.

Towards “marseillization”, according to certain police officers

Concerning the cities affected by this phenomenon of settling scores we find Marseille. The Marseille city is not the only city affected by assassinations between criminals but it still retains a real particularity: the fact that it is difficult to quantify the phenomenon, it is so important. Justice therefore now prefers to speak of “narchomicide”, which brings together both the settling of scores among the network leaders and the assassinations of small hands like the lookouts. The Marseille prosecutor counts 49 for 2023 alone.

Elsewhere in France, other cities are affected by these assassinations between criminals: Nantes, Grenoble, Amiens, Dijon, Valence, Besançon, Lyon… Most cities, medium or large, are now affected by some sort of “marseillization”, in the words of certain police unions. For example, last April and May, four people were killed during conflicts between criminal groups in Valence in the Drôme. Dijon is also affected with two murders in four days this week.

The increasingly uninhibited use of weapons of war

A new development is the fact that these assassinations are no longer necessarily the prerogative of high-level criminals. The delinquents no longer hesitate to shoot to kill or even to terrorize the opposing camp. The use of weapons, more and more often in war, is uninhibited. Last year, among the 8,000 weapons seized throughout France by the police, nearly 300 were weapons of war.

On Wednesday, the Minister of the Interior announced that “more than 120 arrests” were carried out in three days in Bouches-du-Rhône as part of the “place net” operation carried out by the police in Marseille and in the department. On Tuesday, Emmanuel Macron went to Marseille on a surprise visit to extol the merits of this so-called “XXL square net” operation which began on Monday in Bouches-du-Rhône against drug trafficking. This large-scale operation is expected to last several weeks, with hundreds of police, gendarmes and customs officers deployed in the Marseille city.