2024-04-11 07:31:25
Eric Dupond-Moretti, Minister of Justice, and Gérald Darmanin, Minister of the Interior, in Paris, April 5, 2024. STéPHANE LEMOUTON/POOL-REA
“I believe that drugs are the greatest security threat facing our country. » Faced with members of the Senate commission of inquiry into the impact of drug trafficking, Wednesday April 10, the Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, succeeded in his move: imposing the terms of the debate. Understand: his own. This preamble stated in such a clear-cut manner, how can we doubt the need to tackle this head-on? “threat that affects us collectively” ? By questioning not the substance but the method, as Jérôme Durain (socialist, environmentalist and republican group), combative president of the commission on the subject of the “Place net XXL” operations, tried to do.
Spearheading government action in the fight against drug trafficking, these operations are sometimes denounced – including by certain police officers – as demonstrations of force of questionable effectiveness. Beyond a « communication XXL », do they produce “really have effects in terms of network disruption”?asked the senator from Saône-et-Loire.
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“We still seized 3.6 tonnes of cannabis, 13 million euros in assets and almost 1,000 weapons”replied Mr. Darmanin, who put forward the figure of 7,177 arrests for 365 referrals. “That’s 5%”quipped Senator M. Durain.
The minister also fully assumed the communication dimension of a strategy which, by attacking street dealing, would also shake up the “top of the spectrum”that is to say the structured networks led by bosses often taking refuge abroad, “in the Gulf countries” notably. This link between large-scale operations carried out on public roads and the incapacitation of international traffickers is, however, strongly contested by the specialized services, who defend the need for long-term investigations.
Creation of a national anti-drug prosecution
Mr. Darmanin above all admitted that his action was aimed less at eradicating trafficking than at “prevent criminal organizations from becoming too financially significant”. In this perspective, he added, “everyone has to deal with drugs” : magistrates specialized in financial matters but also tax services or social organizations such as Urssaf. The minister, however, recognized that this transversal approach was still flawed. “It would have to be XXL interministerial”summarized Mr. Durain, pleading for a “leader of the wire to build (…) on the judicial side and on the law enforcement side”.
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