PARIS: Multiple French prisons have been attacked in recent nights, including with automatic weapons, in what the justice minister said on Tuesday was a response to a government clamp-down on a drug trade turbocharged by a surge in cocaine trafficking.

Military-grade weapons were fired at entrance to Toulon prison, in southern France, the prison officials’ union UFAP said. Vehicles were also set on fire outside the jails in Villepinte, Nanterre, Aix-Luynes, and Valence, UFAP said. In Nancy, a prison officer was threatened at their home, while in Marseille there was an attempted arson attack.

Years of record South American cocaine imports to Europe have metastasised local drug markets, sparking a wave of drug violence across the continent. France has not been spared, with record cocaine seizures, and gangs reaping windfalls from the white powder as they expand from traditional power bases in cities such as Marseille into smaller regional towns unaccustomed to drug violence.

Justice Minister Gerald Darmanin, who plans to build new high-security prisons to crack down on gangsters who run their empires from behind bars, said he would travel to Toulon.

“Attempts have been made to intimidate staff in several prisons, ranging from burning vehicles to firing automatic weapons,” Darmanin wrote on X. “The French Republic is facing up to the problem of drug trafficking and is taking measures that will massively disrupt the criminal networks.”

Published in Dawn, April 16th, 2025