According to the author of a recent book, Narcotraffic, Europe’s poison, “France is at the heart of the geopolitics of drugs. With its two major ports of Marseille and Le Havre, it has an ideal geographical position in this Europe of free movement.”
Mathieu Verboud said that the growth in world production of cocaine had triggered an “explosion of supply and demand. The market has gone through the roof and so have the profits.”
The sheer wealth of drugs organisations meant they had the power to corrupt everyone from dock-workers to local politicians, the author warned, a process he said was already well-advanced in countries like the Netherlands and Belgium.
Several French politicians have said it is time to call in the army to deal with drugs-trafficking and the gangs which hold sway in many high-immigration city estates.
Christian Estrosi, mayor of the southern coastal city of Nice, said: “Narcotrafficking has transformed into narcoterrorism. Its aim now is to terrorise, subjugate and rule.
“We have already successfully deployed the means to fight terrorism. It’s time to act with determination against narcoterrorism.”
Estrosi was referring to wave of deadly jihadist attacks in the mid 2010s, when France deployed hundreds of soldiers on to the streets of many cities where they continue to patrol.