Politique Internationale — France is said to be plagued by all kinds of trafficking. To what extent is this assertion justified?
Alain Bauer — Gradually, France has indeed become truly overwhelmed by all kinds of trafficking. In 2024, 52,300 people were involved in drug trafficking, a 7% increase compared to the previous year. The country has around 3,000 dealing points identified by security forces, and eight out of ten municipalities are affected by this type of crime. This data reflects a worrying reality. However, it would be wrong to equate any increase with a worsening of violence or a collapse of public order. Part of the rise in recorded incidents can also be explained by increased mobilization of law enforcement. Whether it is the unveiling of a previously hidden reality or an actual increase, the effect on public opinion remains the same.
Nevertheless, some types of trafficking have experienced spectacular growth. The overall turnover of France’s illicit drug market is believed to have tripled between 2010 and 2023. The French Observatory for Drugs and Addictive Trends (OFDT) estimated it at between four and ten billion euros in 2023. These figures are staggering and place France in a unique position: the leading consumer of cannabis in Europe, third for heroin and sixth for cocaine according to the Foundation for Research on Administrations and Public Policies (Ifrap). At the same time, tobacco trafficking has also surged: around 15.4% of cigarettes consumed in France are believed to be counterfeit—a European record—and tax revenue losses due to illegal tobacco trade are estimated at 5 billion euros per year.
P. I. — What explains such a worrying situation?
A. B. — The explanatory factors are multiple and reinforce each other. First, demand is not weakening. In 2023, more than one million French people had used cocaine at least once, a figure that has doubled in a few years, reflecting the normalization of drugs once perceived as marginal. This explosion in demand is largely driven by abundant supply and constantly falling prices, the result of rapidly growing global production.
Next, crime is better organised. According to estimates, nearly 300,000 people are directly or indirectly involved in drug trafficking, including around 20,000 full-time. Networks have become more professional, hierarchical, and above all diversified: behind cigarette trafficking are structured international criminal networks, often linked to other trafficking such as drug trafficking, which constantly adapt their methods to evade repression, even establishing clandestine manufacturing plants in France. Several circumvention channels exist: genuine-fake (real products diverted from their distribution channels), fake-genuine (counterfeit products of equivalent quality to the original), fake-fake (dangerous counterfeit products), the quantities of which add up alongside inconsistencies in European legislation, particularly certain peculiarities in Andorra. Technology also plays an increasing role. Encrypted social networks, cryptocurrencies, and sales on the darknet have profoundly transformed traffickers’ methods, making law enforcement action more difficult. Express freight and postal services have become major transit routes for small quantities, which often slip through customs controls.
P. I. — Do we have reliable statistical data on all this?
A. B. — The institutions producing data are identified and recognised: the Ministerial Statistical Service for Internal Security (SSMSI) for recorded crime and delinquency, the OFDT for consumption behaviours, and the Anti-Narcotics Office (OFAST) for the drug market. Their publications are authoritative. However, there is no precise accounting of trafficking. The limitations are real. In the field of contraband tobacco, apart from the Customs “Tobacco Plan,” no legal statistics or data from security forces are easily accessible.
More fundamentally, measuring the underground economy is inherently difficult: customs seizures represent only a fraction of what actually circulates, and estimates of trafficking revenues involve considerable margins of uncertainty. The 2024 Senate inquiry commission itself fluctuated between 3.5 and 6 billion euros for drug trafficking alone. This illustrates the scale of the uncertainty.
P. I. — Are drug trafficking and the parallel cigarette market two distinct phenomena?
A. B. — Increasingly less so. In some neighbourhoods, drug traffickers have given way to tobacco traffickers, an activity that carries less criminal risk and offers comparable financial gains. The economic logic is clear: the penalties incurred for tobacco trafficking are significantly lighter than for drugs, while margins remain attractive.
France stands out from its European neighbours due to higher tobacco taxation, and the price difference between a legally sold pack of cigarettes in France and in a neighbouring country ranged in 2023 from 40% to 100%. This price gap creates a structural incentive for smuggling and benefits both small street vendors and large criminal organisations managing flows on a continental scale. The convergence of trafficking is therefore a reality: the same logistical networks, the same money laundering channels, and sometimes the same individuals.
P. I. — Can we speak of a cartel war in France?
A. B. — The debate over a supposed “Mexicanisation” of France has gained increasing prominence in public discourse. For about five years, discussions around drug trafficking have been characterized by semantic inflation structured around the neologism
“Mexicanisation” and the prefix “narco», while the term “cartel” is increasingly used to describe French criminal organisations—even at the highest political and judicial levels.
This rhetoric reflects some truth: violence linked to drug trafficking has crossed important symbolic thresholds, with scoresettling in medium-sized cities, the massive recruitment of minors, and intimidation methods similar to those observed in Latin America. But the comparison has its limits. In 2024, the homicide rate per 100,000 inhabitants ranged between 23 and 25 in Mexico, compared to 1.5 in France—a gap that places the two countries worlds apart. The Paris prosecutor Laure Beccuau summarised it as follows: “France is not a narco-state, as that would imply that all decision-making bodies are corrupted.” However, corruption is progressing in all institutions confronted with drugs, and some neighbouring countries are particularly affected.
What is established, however, is the growing structuring of organized crime. The DZ Mafia is not a mafia; it is rather a cartel in the making. Experts note that youth are being instrumentalised: violent minors no longer hesitate to carry out contracts, agreeing to kill solely for money. Violence is attempted or committed against magistrates, police officers, gendarmes, and prison staff. This phenomenon, which affects all of Western Europe, is a sign of the criminalisation of segments of society rather than territorial control comparable to that of Mexican cartels. But it is a beginning.
P. I. — What should the public authorities’ response be to these forms of trafficking?
A. B. — The coercive response has long dominated. Despite announcements of zero tolerance, repression policy appears, in practice, ineffective and fails to reduce either drug use or trafficking. The issue of medical prevention remains largely neglected. This partial failure has led to a major legislative overhaul. Enacted in June 2025, a new law marked a turning point in the fight against drug trafficking by notably creating a National Prosecutor’s Office for Organized Crime (PNACO), establishing reinforced prisons, introducing the possibility of a cooperating witness status, and significantly strengthening powers to freeze criminal assets. OFAST was reorganised to resemble a true “French-style Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA),” placed under the joint supervision of the Ministries of the Interior and the Economy, with exclusive jurisdiction over drug-related crimes. The National Prosecutor’s Office for Organized Crime has been operational since January 5, 2026, and has inherited several dozen cases.
These advances are real. But the question of resources remains. The amounts allocated to combating tobacco trafficking— customs, justice, and security combined—are said to be under 100 million euros per year, a level considered insufficient. In both drug trafficking and tobacco, operational services face organisations with virtually unlimited resources. Recent results nevertheless show increasing effectiveness: drug seizures worth up to more than 2 billion euros by customs increased by 78% in 2025.
On tobacco, the political contradiction is clear: the State sets high prices for public health reasons, but this fiscal policy mechanically fuels smuggling. According to a customs study, smuggling and purchases abroad account for about 18% of tobacco consumed in France, representing more than 4 billion euros in lost tax revenue. There is no simple solution to this equation: lowering taxes to curb smuggling would run counter to public health objectives; maintaining them implies accepting a structural parallel market.
P. I. — Given the scale of trafficking, are there foreign responses that could inspire us?
A. B. — International experience offers avenues, provided it is read clearly. The Portuguese model is often cited. In 2001, Portugal decriminalised all drugs, becoming the first European country to adopt a public health approach to their consumption: instead of being punished, users are directed towards treatment. The results over twenty years are striking: drug-taking levels in Portugal are among the lowest in the European Union, including among young people, and the rate of drug-related deaths is five times lower than the EU average.
However, this success relies on a subtle balance: decriminalising use did not mean legalising trafficking, which remains severely punished. It is the distinction between the user— treated as a patient—and the trafficker—prosecuted as a criminal— that has helped reduce part of the demand without disarming repression. More than half of Portuguese public spending on illicit drugs is allocated to prevention and treatment. This rebalancing between coercion and public health is probably the most transferable lesson.
Other approaches deserve attention. The Netherlands have experimented for several decades with controlled tolerance of cannabis. The United Kingdom has intensified its fight against money laundering, with notable results in financially destabilising networks. Some Nordic countries have focused on early prevention and education, with lasting effects on behaviour.
But a coherent approach must be found that does not sacrifice health to order, nor punish addiction through criminal repression. France is not “becoming Mexican,” but it is facing more structured, more lucrative, and more violent organised crime than twenty years ago. Imperfect yet converging statistics available confirm this. The response cannot be purely coercive: it must combine repression of networks, treatment of users, a balanced pricing policy for tobacco, and investment in prevention. The June 2025 law is a step in the right direction on the judicial front, but it will not be sufficient on its own. Ultimately, the issue is as much social as institutional: trafficking thrives where legitimate prospects are lacking.
