Arizona Tribune - Macron slams 'bourgeois' drug users as French activist says won't be silenced

The killing last week in Marseille of the younger brother of anti-drug activist Amine Kessaci amplified concern over the soaring death toll. Authorities say the murder was linked to the campaigner's activism.

Kessaci, 22, vowed to continue denouncing the scourge of narcotics crime even after the killing of his younger sibling, writing in an op-ed in the Le Monde daily: "No, I won't be quiet."

Macron told a cabinet meeting "it is sometimes bourgeois people in city centres who finance drug traffickers," according to government spokeswoman Maud Bregeon said, stressing she was quoting directly the head of state's words.

"We cannot deplore the deaths on the one hand and continue to consume drugs in the evenings after work on the other," she added.

- 'Fight to death' -

Kessaci, 22, threw himself into campaigning after his half-brother was murdered in a drug-trafficking feud in 2020.

His younger brother Mehdi, 20, was killed on last Thursday when a gunman shot him dead in his parked car.

The man had no criminal record and wanted to be a police officer. Interior Minister Laurent Nunez on Tuesday called the crime a "turning point".

"I will speak of the violence of drug trafficking. Its grip. I will speak of the cowardice of those who order the crimes," Kessaci wrote in Le Monde.

"I will speak of the shortcomings of the state, the flaws of the republic, the abandoned territories, and the obliterated populations," he added.

"Faced with such an enemy, the state must recognise what is happening and understand that a fight to the death is underway," he added.

The piece was published the day after Mehdi Kessaci's funeral in ceremony marked by a heavy police presence at the mosque and cemetery.

Amine Kessaci, who had been threatened for months, was wearing a bulletproof vest to ensure his own safety, a police source told AFP, asking not to be named.

Kessaci has been living away from Marseille under police protection but lamented in the piece for Le Monde that this security had not been extended to other members of his family.

Marseille has been 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.

Some of those killed had no link the drugs world and are believed to have been caught in the crossfire.

Nunez and Justice Minister Gerald Darmanin are due in Marseille on Thursday. Macron at a crisis meeting at the Elysee on Wednesday urged France to step up its actions and use the same approach it has used against "terrorism".

"Faced with such an enemy, the state must grasp the gravity of the situation," Kessaci, a law student and Greens party member wrote.

"It's time to take action, for instance by bringing public services back to neighbourhoods, combating school failure that provides traffickers with a submissive workforce, equipping investigators and police forces with the resources they need, and genuinely supporting the families of victims of drug trafficking," he said.

L.Adams--AT