PARIS: French President Emmanuel Macron Tuesday urged more measures against drug crime after the brother of a prominent anti-narcotics activist was murdered last week in the southern city of Marseille, a minister said.
France’s second-largest city is struggling to battle drug crime, with more than a dozen people killed since the start of the year in turf wars and other disputes linked to cocaine and cannabis dealing.
Macron convened an emergency meeting with cabinet ministers after an unidentified gunman killed the 20-year-old younger brother of activist and Greens party member Amine Kessaci, 22, in Marseille on Thursday last week.
Interior Minister Laurent Nunez said after the meeting at the Elysee that Thursday’s murder had been a “turning point” and Macron had called on participants to “up” the battle against drug dealing.
“Unfortunately, it’s an act of intimidation that is very directly linked to trafficking,” he said of the killing of Mehdi Kessaci, who had no criminal record and wanted to be a police officer.
Nunez said he and Justice Minister Gerald Darmanin would be heading to Marseille on Thursday, ahead of Macron visiting the southern city in December.
Nunez said the president had asked ministers to work on better intercepting drugs entering France, including through “detection systems for flows at ports and airports” and more cooperation with the judicial authorities of foreign countries.

- ‘Put an end to that’ -

Kessaci became an advocate for the families of victims of drug crime and for more opportunities for youth in Marseille’s impoverished northern districts when his older half-brother was killed in 2020 after falling into drug dealing.
He and his family were set to bury his younger brother in private on Tuesday afternoon, ahead of a planned march in his memory on Saturday.
Nunez said Kessaci’s family had been given police protection, and security forces would be present at both events.
A source following the case, requesting anonymity because not authorized to speak to the press, told AFP Macron had called Kessaci to present his condolences.
Kessaci had been under police protection, including after writing a book about his experience of losing his brother, another source following the case told AFP last week.
“You died because you believed in a rotten dream, sold piecemeal in stairwells. And if I’m speaking up today, it’s to put an end to that,” he wrote to his older brother in his book “Marseille, wipe your tears” published last month.
The law student ran as a civil society member on the Greens list in the European and parliamentary elections last year, but was unsuccessful in both.
Fourteen people have been killed in drug-related crimes since the start of the year in the Marseille region, according to an AFP tally of official figures.
But authorities are also concerned about similar violence in other parts of France.
In the southeastern city of Grenoble, a teenager suffered gunshot wounds at the weekend near a drug dealing spot and remained in a coma on Tuesday.