‘Drug-dealing scum' most likely behind French prison attacks
'Drug-dealing scum' are behind a series of mysterious and co-ordinated gun and arson attacks on French prisons, the county's interior minister suggested on Thursday.
Unknown criminals have targeted nine jails across the country since Monday, spraying walls and entrance gates with gunfire from automatic weapons and setting fire to facilities and staff cars.
'My firm conviction … is that we are dealing with drug-dealing scum,' Bruno Retailleau told French radio station RTL, although he did not rule out that foreign agents or ultra-Left groups could be responsible.
'They have not declared war on us, but we are the ones who have declared war on them with the drug trafficking law. We are going to be able to hit their wallets,' he said.
Other French officials said the attacks could be attempts at intimidation from cartels amid a government crackdown on drug dealing.
On Wednesday, Emmanuel Macron vowed to punish the unidentified assailants.
'Some are seeking to intimidate our prison staff and are attacking our establishments with unacceptable violence. They will be tracked down, tried and punished,' the French president wrote on X.
Olivier Christen, the anti-terrorism prosecutor who is overseeing the investigation, told French media that 'there is no preferred line of inquiry'.
'Anything is possible, no avenues are closed in our investigations,' Mr Christen said.
'It could be groups of political radicals, it could be groups more closely linked to organised crime, it could also be a convergence of objectives and people manipulating each other, anything is possible.'
Along with prisons, the homes of two prison administration officers and cars parked at the National Penitentiary School were also vandalised or damaged.
Yobs sprayed vehicles and buildings with the letters DDPF, the name of a new Telegram channel created a few days ago. It stands for Defending the Right of French Prisoners, and is unknown to French intelligence services, Mr Christen said.
Messages posted on the channel include death threats against jail guards, graphic descriptions of abuse and calls for the prison population to mobilise.
'Know that we are not terrorists, we are here to defend human rights inside prisons,' the group wrote on the channel.
Mr Retailleau and Gérald Darmanin, the minister of justice, have sworn to crack down on the national drug crisis with the expansion of the country's penitentiary system, which includes a new high-security prison for the country's most dangerous drug traffickers.
In 2024, French authorities seized a record 54 tonnes of cocaine, marking a 130 per cent rise from the year before. Mr Retailleau has said that France has been hit with a 'white tsunami' that has rewritten the rules of the criminal landscape.
According to the French Audit Office, drug trafficking affects eight out of 10 communes and is no longer confined to the major metropolises.
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