PARIS: France’s struggle with drug-related violence is at a “tipping point” after a bloody shootout gravely wounded one teenager and left four more hurt, Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau said on Friday.

Police were called out around 10:45pm on Thursday night in response to gunshots outside a restaurant in a working-class neighbourhood of western city Poitiers, a security source said.

“Hundreds of people were in the area and a fight broke out, with some of the youths accusing others of being close with the suspected perpetrator” of the shooting, prefect Jean-Marie Girier told news channel BFMTV.

Responders found a 15-year-old lying on the ground with a bullet wound to the head, the police source said. He was brought to hospital while paramedics treated two more — a 15-year-old and a 16-year-old — for serious gunshot wounds.

Another two 16-year-olds came to hospital themselves with lighter wounds, one to the scalp and another to a foot.

Police said they found around 10 bullet casings from 22-calibre ammunition at the scene. “The ‘narco thugs’ have no limits any more… These shootouts aren’t happening in South America, they’re happening in Rennes, in Poitiers… we’re at a tipping point,” Retailleau told BFMTV.

France faced a choice between “full mobilisation or the ‘Mexicanisation’ of the country,” he added, saying the “skirmish between rival bands involved several hundred people” — although a police source later said that between 50 and 60 actually engaged in fighting.

Officers used tear gas to break up the fight, restoring order around 45 minutes after arriving on the scene, the source added.

The prefecture in the Vienne department where Poitiers is located said police reinforcements would be deployed to the city’s Couronneries neighbourhood by Friday evening. There were lingering “tensions between different groups” following the skirmish, it added.

Published in Dawn, November 2nd, 2024