{"id":293543,"date":"2025-04-29T20:20:20","date_gmt":"2025-04-29T20:20:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2025\/04\/29\/french-lawmakers-cracking-down-on-drug-traffickers\/"},"modified":"2025-04-29T20:20:20","modified_gmt":"2025-04-29T20:20:20","slug":"french-lawmakers-cracking-down-on-drug-traffickers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2025\/04\/29\/french-lawmakers-cracking-down-on-drug-traffickers\/","title":{"rendered":"French Lawmakers Cracking Down on Drug Traffickers"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"text-align:center\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i2.wp.com\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2025\/04\/29\/multimedia\/29france-drugs-mhzb\/29france-drugs-mhzb-facebookJumbo.jpg?ssl=1\" class=\"attachment-post-thumbnail size-post-thumbnail wp-post-image\" alt=\"French Lawmakers Cracking Down on Drug Traffickers\" title=\"French Lawmakers Cracking Down on Drug Traffickers\" \/><\/div><p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-0\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">French lawmakers on Tuesday widely approved a bill that cracks down on illegal drug trafficking by empowering prosecutors, toughening the penalties for traffickers and giving the police more investigative tools.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The move, which paves the way for the measures to become law, was a rare case of successful policymaking in France\u2019s lower house of Parliament, the National Assembly. Lawmakers there have been hobbled by political fractures, but they have joined to express growing concern over the <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2025\/01\/04\/world\/europe\/france-drugs-small-towns.html?searchResultPosition=1\" title=\"\">far-reaching impact<\/a> of crime and violence tied to the drug trade.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The National Assembly approved the bill with 396 votes in favor and 68 against. Its passage was a win for the government of Prime Minister Fran\u00e7ois Bayrou, who <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2025\/02\/05\/world\/europe\/france-government-no-confidence-vote.html?searchResultPosition=4\" title=\"\">survived a no-confidence motion<\/a> in February to pass a budget but who is still at the mercy of the divided lower house.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cEveryone knows the current political difficulties: no majority in the National Assembly, a complicated path for major bills,\u201d Bruno Retailleau, France\u2019s interior minister, a conservative who championed the bill, told lawmakers on Tuesday. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-1\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Mr. Retailleau said that the broad support for the bill showed that lawmakers understood that drug trafficking and organized crime were \u201coften the root cause of hyper-violence\u201d in France and an \u201cexistential threat\u201d against its institutions.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Some left-wing lawmakers expressed concern about the focus on cracking down against drug traffickers, rather than the root causes of their trade, but only the hard-left France Unbowed party ultimately voted against the bill. Green lawmakers and a handful of others abstained.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Impetus for the new bill came from an <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.senat.fr\/travaux-parlementaires\/structures-temporaires\/commissions-denquete\/commission-denquete-sur-limpact-du-narcotrafic-en-france-et-les-mesures-a-prendre-pour-y-remedier.html\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">alarming Senate Committee report<\/a> on drug trafficking that was published last year. It was spearheaded by a Socialist and a member of the conservative Republican Party in a rare instance of collaboration across the aisle.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cThe impact of drug trafficking on France has exploded over the past decade,\u201d the report warned. It said that the police were now seizing 10 times as much cocaine as they were a decade ago and that France\u2019s overall drug trade was estimated to be at least 3.5 billion euros, or nearly $4 billion.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Just last week, the police seized a 9.1-metric ton shipment of cannabis resin near Lyon, the Paris prosecutor\u2019s office announced on Tuesday<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-2\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Shooting and arson <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2025\/04\/15\/world\/europe\/france-prison-attacks.html?searchResultPosition=2\" title=\"\">attacks on French prisons<\/a> this month have also heightened a sense that the French authorities are facing an uphill battle against violent crime. The justice minister, G\u00e9rald Darmanin, has suggested that the attacks were carried out by drug traffickers to \u201cintimidate\u201d the state, although the identity of those responsible is not yet clear.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The linchpin of France\u2019s new drug trafficking measures, which were inspired in part by <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.lefigaro.fr\/actualite-france\/quartiers-haute-securite-forces-speciales-comment-gerald-darmanin-s-inspire-de-l-italie-pour-lutter-contre-le-narcotrafic-20250126\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">Italy\u2019s anti-mafia efforts<\/a>, is the creation a national prosecutor\u2019s office dedicated to coordinating organized crime cases<span class=\"css-8l6xbc evw5hdy0\">  <\/span>It is expected to be operational by 2026, and will focus on the most complex and prominent drug-trafficking investigations.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The bill alsomakes it easier to seize the assets of drug traffickers, and allows the police to document some information about investigations \u2014 like how a wiretap was conducted \u2014 in separate case files that are not accessible to the lawyers of drug-trafficking suspects. That change is intended to avoid leaks that could endanger the lives of investigators or informants, but it has infuriated defense lawyers, who say it violates the right to a fair trial.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The bill also drastically toughens the treatment of inmates regarded as particularly dangerous. It creates special high-security units for the most prominent drug traffickers to minimize outside contact, banning some family visits and using more videoconferencing to reduce the number of in-person court hearings.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Some of the measures seemed tailor-made for one of France\u2019s most notorious criminals, Mohamed Amra. who was freed last year in a <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/05\/14\/world\/europe\/france-prison-ambush.html?searchResultPosition=1\" title=\"\">ruthless ambush<\/a> on a prison convoy that left two guards dead on a major highway.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-3\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The attack <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/05\/15\/world\/europe\/a-france-in-shock-confronts-the-violence-in-its-midst.html?searchResultPosition=3\" title=\"\">shocked the country<\/a> and focused attention on violence tied to the drug trade. Mr. Amra, who was <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2025\/02\/22\/world\/europe\/france-manhunt-prison-break-arrest.html\" title=\"\">taken back into custody<\/a> in Romania in February after a nine-month <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/06\/05\/world\/europe\/france-prisoner-manhunt.html?searchResultPosition=3\" title=\"\">manhunt<\/a>, had juggled cellphones from behind bars to run schemes that included drug trafficking and kidnappings, raising uncomfortable questions about whether the authorities had underestimated him.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The rare critics of the bill just passed in Parliament argued that several of its measures were redundant and that the measure did not give the police the funding needed to tackle complex and time-consuming drug investigations.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cWe still believe that this bill will be, for the most part, inefficient,\u201d Ugo Bernalicis, a France Unbowed lawmaker, told the lower house on Tuesday.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2025\/04\/29\/world\/europe\/french-lawmakers-cracking-down-on-drug-traffickers.html\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>French lawmakers on Tuesday widely approved a bill that cracks down on illegal drug trafficking by empowering prosecutors, toughening the penalties for traffickers and giving the police more investigative tools. The move, which paves the way for the measures to become law, was a rare case of successful policymaking in France\u2019s lower house of Parliament, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":293544,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2025\/04\/29\/multimedia\/29france-drugs-mhzb\/29france-drugs-mhzb-facebookJumbo.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[152438,4077,1393,9403,152437,8456,137130,900,137132,61457,137131,50086],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293543"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=293543"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293543\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":293545,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293543\/revisions\/293545"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/293544"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=293543"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=293543"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=293543"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}