France’s narco-gangs carry out coordinated strikes on seven prisons with machine-gun and arson attacks following crackdown on drug crime

Drug gangs in France have carried coordinated machine-gun and arson attacks on seven prisons in response to the country’s harsh new crackdown on the trafficking of illegal substances. 

Prisons in Toulon, Aix-En-Provence, Marseille, Valence and Nîmes in southern France, and in Villepinte and Nanterre, near Paris, have been attacked since Sunday. 

Police vehicle were set alight at several locations, while at La Farlede prison gunmen opened fired on the prison gate with a Kalashnikov rifle. 

Bullet holes would be seen at the prison’s entrance, while shattered glass was seen still in their frames. 

French police unions called for increased protection for prison staff.  

The country’s anti-terrorism prosecutor’s office has launched an investigation into these attacks to see exactly who was responsible. 

France’s justice Minister Gérald Darmanin said that ‘significant means’ would be deployed to investigate the spate of attacks, and that the perpetrators would be given ‘extremely severe sentences.’

‘I am delighted that the national anti-terrorism prosecutor’s office has taken action because this is extremely serious. These are terrorist attacks’, he added 

Drug gangs in France have carried coordinated machine-gun and arson attacks on seven prisons

Police vehicle were set alight at several locations

At La Farlede prison (pictured), gunmen opened fired on the prison gate with a Kalashnikov rifle 

‘Clearly people are trying to destabilise the state by intimidating it,’ he told the CNews/Europe 1 broadcaster on Wednesday morning.

‘They are doing it because we are taking measures against the permissiveness that existed until now in jails,’ he said.

While no group has yet claimed responsibility, anarchist symbols were seen at some sites while the letters ‘DDPF’, meaning ‘French prisoners’ rights’, were seen at others.  

Darmanin and Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau have in recent months vowed to intensify the fight against narcotics and drug-related crime.

Darmanin said he was seeking to crack down on ‘drug networks that continue to operate from prison cells.

‘They order killings, launder money. They threaten police officers, judges, prison guards, and they escape,’ he said. 

The justice minister has so far proposed several measures to tighten prison security, including setting up dedicated high-security jails for drug lords to isolate them from their gangs. 

A prison administration officer shows bullet impacts and letters ‘DDFM’ spray-painted on a door of the Toulon-La Farlede prison ahead of a visit of the French Minister of Justice in La Farlede, near Toulon, southern France on April 15, 2025

Bullet impacts on a wall of the Toulon-La Farlede prison in La Farlede, near Toulon, southern France

Shots were fired at prisons across France

This photograph taken on April 15, 2025 shows the surrounding wall of the Toulon-La Farlede prison in La Farlede, near Toulon, southern France

France’s parliament is currently passing a law that would great a special prosecutor’s office to deal with drugs crimes, which would be equipped with new investigative powers.  

In February, France a record number of cocaine seizures in the first 11 months of 2024 – 53.5 tonnes, a rise of 130% on the 23.2 tonnes seized in 2023.  

The plan comes after assailants last year attacked a prison van carrying suspected drugs baron Mohamed Amra at a highway tollbooth, freeing him and killing two prison guards.

He has since been re-arrested in Romania and extradited back to France.

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