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Nicholas Toukat/AFP via Getty ImagesA prominent French anti-drug campaigner has vowed to stand up to intimidation and “continue to tell the truth about drug violence”, five years after his brother was killed by drug criminals last week.
Amine Kessaci, 22, Le Monde His brother Mahdi’s funeral came a day after the government described his murder last week as a turning point in France’s drug war.
“Yesterday I lost my brother. Today I spoke out,” he wrote in an opinion piece.
“(Drug traffickers) attack us to destroy, to tame, to conquer. They want to eliminate any resistance, destroy any free spirit, kill any embryo of resistance.”
Last Wednesday, 20-year-old Mehdi Kessaci was shot dead as he parked his car in central Marseille, in what appeared to be a warning or punishment for his brother Amine, who was from one of the city’s drug gangs.
“We agree that this premeditated murder is completely new. It is clearly a crime of intimidation. It is a new level of violence,” Interior Minister Laurent Nunez said after a ministerial meeting on drug crime at the Elysee Palace on Tuesday.
Mehdi was the second Kessage brother killed by drug offenders. In 2020, the body of Brahim Kessaci, then 22, was found in a burned-out car.
That murder prompted Amin to set up his association Conscience, which aims to expose the damage gangs inflict on working-class communities.
Marseille is famous for its growing war on drugs, and Armin Kessage recently wrote a book called Marseille Wipe Your Tears – Life and Death in the Land of Drugs.
AFP via Getty ImagesAmin revealed in the Le Monde article that police had recently warned him to leave Marseille because of threats to his life.
He attended his brother’s funeral wearing a bulletproof jacket and under heavy police protection.
“I speak because if I don’t want to die, I have no choice but to fight. I speak because I know silence is a refuge for our enemies,” he wrote, urging citizens to show courage and governments to take action.
The murder of Mehdi Kessaci has refocused national attention on drug trafficking, which French experts and ministers agree has reached almost uncontrollable proportions.
Senate MP Étienne Blanc, author of a recent study, said the French drug trade’s turnover now stands at €7bn (£6bn), or 70% of the entire budget of the Ministry of Justice.
He said some 250,000 people in France made a living from trade – more than the combined number of police and gendarmes (230,000). According to Le Monde, there are 1.1 million cocaine users in the country.
French President Emmanuel Macron lashed out at such consumers on Wednesday, telling a weekly cabinet meeting that “sometimes it is the inner-city bourgeoisie that finances human traffickers”.
Macron convened a special drug summit the day before to respond to Amin’s murder and review progress on a new anti-drug law passed in June.
It created a special prosecutor’s office dedicated to fighting organized crime – similar to the one used to fight terrorism – which will eventually have 30 dedicated magistrates.
Under the law, high-ranking drug offenders will serve their sentences in solitary confinement in purpose-built prisons, where it is hoped it will be more difficult to continue operating behind bars.
Laurent Nunez said there was evidence that the crackdown on drug crime was working – the number of homicides in Marseille fell from 49 in 2023 to 24 in 2024.
The number of trading points in the city has been reduced by half, from 160 to 80, he added.
“The war was not won, but we did achieve results.”
Alain Ciocca/AFP via Getty ImagesAccording to the author of the recent book “Drug Trafficking,” Europe’s Poison, “France is at the center of drug geopolitics. With its two major ports of Marseille and Le Havre, France has an ideal location in a free-flowing Europe.”
Mathieu Verboud says the growth in world cocaine production has triggered “an explosion of supply and demand. The market has peaked and profits have soared.”
The author warns that the vast wealth of drug organizations means they have the ability to corrupt everyone from dockworkers to local politicians, a process he says is already advanced in countries such as the Netherlands and Belgium.
Several French politicians say it is time to use the military to crack down on drug trafficking and the gangs that dominate many high-immigration urban estates.
Christian Estrosi, mayor of the southern coastal city of Nice, said: “Drug trafficking has transformed into narco-terrorism. Its goal now is to intimidate, conquer and dominate.”
“We have successfully deployed the means to combat terrorism. Now is the time to resolutely combat narco-terrorism.”
Estrosi was referring to a wave of deadly jihadist attacks in the mid-2010s, when France deployed hundreds of troops and continued patrols on the streets of many cities.
