France will start seizing drug users’ phones across the country as part of a crackdown on gangs blamed for a wave of prison attacks. The move expands a trial in Bayonne aimed at stopping deals made through encrypted messaging apps.
Justice Minister Gérald Darmanin said the plan was based on work by prosecutors in Bayonne, southwest France, where phones used for drug transactions have already been seized.
"The law allows us to seize a cell phone, a car, a motorcycle, or a quad bike," Darmanin told FranceInfo radio on Thursday. He said these items can be "confiscated" and sold before any conviction.
"Seizures in general of money, cars, belongings – are sometimes more effective than prosecution," he said.
Bayonne prosecutor Jérôme Bourrier called for “a more assertive crackdown” on drug users, speaking on local station Ici Pays Basque.
"Narcotics trafficking is increasingly using encrypted networks, means of communication, this phenomenon known as 'Ubershit' or 'Ubercoke'," Bourrier said. "I think it's good policy to hit where it hurts and seize these cell phones."
Scores of attacks
Darmanin made the announcement after visiting Saint-Quentin-Fallavier prison in Isère, which was attacked earlier this week.
He was joined by Prime Minister François Bayrou and Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau. On Tuesday night, gunfire and Molotov cocktails hit a housing block in nearby Villefontaine, where some prison officers live.
“Sixty-five acts of aggression or damage have been committed over the past 10 days,” Retailleau told reporters.
Bayrou said the "intolerable" attacks showed that the government's tougher measures for the most dangerous drug traffickers "hit the nail on the head".
New prison to isolate 100 of France's most dangerous drug lords
Bayrou said criminal "networks" that "believed they were in a situation of impunity" now faced "harsher, more rigorous sanctions, without the means to continue carrying out their nefarious activities from prison".
He also offered support to prison staff, saying officers could "have their homes monitored" if they wished.
'No one is safe'
"No one is safe," a local representative of the Independent Penitentiary Union (UFAP) told French news agency AFP on condition of anonymity. "I accepted the danger by joining the penitentiary. But I didn't commit to endangering my family."
The officer said "the only" progress so far was "the deployment of law enforcement at the start and end of officers' shifts to protect them".
Retailleau said the government had “pulled out all stops” to catch those responsible.
He said 125 investigators were now working on the case, along with 30 from the scientific and technical police, under the national anti-terrorism prosecutor's office (PNAT), which has taken charge of 13 attacks.
Anti-terror probe launched after wave of attacks on French prisons
Over the past 10 days, a group calling itself "Defence of the Rights of French Prisoners" (DDPF) has targeted prison buildings and staff, leaving threats and videos on Telegram. The group’s acronym has appeared near several of the attacked prisons.
On Tuesday, graffiti with the message "no CRA Dijon, nor any prison, DDPF" was left on a building owned by Vinci in Villeurbanne, near Lyon.
AFP received a message from DDPF on Thursday.
"It's to denounce Vinci and all the other companies that make money by building prisons where thousands of people are mistreated," the group wrote, accusing Vinci of helping to build a detention centre in Dijon.
A bill aimed at fighting drug trafficking, which lawmakers could pass at the end of the month, includes plans for high-security units for the most dangerous drug traffickers.
(with newswires)
