“Prison is no longer a hindrance, we must confiscate the money”: how the Senate wants to free France from drug trafficking

Senator Jérôme Durain spoke about the drug gangrene that is eating away at French society ? MIDI LIBRE – Yan.Phi.

Senator Jérôme Durain, president of the commission on the impact of drug trafficking in France, defended his report and the bill that will be debated on January 27 before the Senate at the University of Montpellier on Monday December 9.

“If we do not take the measure of the threat of drug trafficking, we are missing the point. We left Marseille with 49 narchomicides in 2023, but the France of sub-prefectures and small villages is affected. The turnover is estimated at between 3.5 and 6 billion euros in France: only one subject counts, it is money.”

Chairman of the Senate inquiry committee on the impact of drug trafficking in France, Jérôme Durain crisscrosses France to discuss the transpartisan bill that will be defended at the end of January in the Senate.

The findings of the committee, whose report was published on May 14 and debated Monday evening at the University of Montpellier, is edifying. Particularly on the lack of means.

“Criminals are professionals”

“The formula: “they have unlimited resources” is the phrase that was heard the most during the commission. The criminals are professionals, in production, logistics, transport, distribution, digital. The security forces are helpless”, detailed Jérôme Durain, senator (PS) of Saône-et-Loire.

Beyond the observation, solutions are put forward: better fight against money laundering and “hit” the wallet: “Prison is no longer an obstacle to trafficking and crime, some cynical observers say that the trafficker in detention is teleworking… We must confiscate the money, the criminal assets” stated the senator.

Create a national prosecutor's office to fight drug trafficking

Or protect police investigations by not revealing all the new investigative techniques in the proceedings, create a large investigative service and a national prosecutor's office dedicated to drug trafficking, like the one that exists for terrorism, and above all, stop working in silos, with each service in its own corner.

“It's a market: if there are no consumers, there is no market.

If we don't tackle the problem of demand, we can build all the specialized prosecutor's offices, build prisons, every time a trafficker is incarcerated he will be replaced within a minute and that won't work because the market will be there” recalled Raphaël Balland, public prosecutor of Béziers and vice-president of the National Conference of Prosecutors.

“Understanding why there are 5 million cannabis consumers in France”

“Repression and prevention: these are the two legs, here, the second leg is missing, fighting trafficking means fighting use, understanding why we have 5 million cannabis consumers in France.”

He was also able to recall the situation of magistrates in his jurisdiction as an illustration of the current lack of resources: “the public prosecutor's office in France has three times fewer magistrates than the European average, in Béziers, we have magistrates, a tenth is announced in 2027, we would need 30 to be in the average”.

The interdepartmental director of the national police of Hérault Benoît Desmartins, spoke of the queues, in the evening, at the points of deal or the outsourcing of these “furnaces” for the resale of narcotics, with young individuals coming from Marseille, Toulouse or Saint-Étienne to “work” in Sète.

“For the police, narcotics are a priority but we have so many priorities” he recalled.

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