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A 15-year-old boy shot in the head during a bloody shootout between drug gangs in the west of France on Saturday died of his wounds, the regional prosecutor announced, as the interior minister warned the country was at risk of “Mexicanisation” due to rising drug crime.
The teen had been in intensive care since the shootings Thursday evening in the city of Poitiers, which have raised alarm nationwide over increasing violence in gangland turfwars that are making the streets unsafe.
Four other minors, aged between 15 and 16, were also injured by gunshots fired in front of a restaurant in a city in the incident which involved dozens of people.
Officers used tear gas to break up the fight, restoring order around 45 minutes after arriving on the scene, the source added.
Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau said on Friday France’s struggle with drug-related violence is at a “tipping point”, with the nation facing a choice between “full mobilisation or the ‘Mexicanisation’ of the country.
Mexico has suffered more than 450,000 drug-related killings since the government started using the military to fight its notorious drug cartels in 2006.
Gangland violence long associated with Mediterranean port city Marseille has expanded into other French cities in recent years.
Victims can include gang members, some of them minors guarding dealing spots or employed as hitmen, but also innocent bystanders.
Poitiers’ experience on Thursday was “unprecedented” for the city of 90,000, mayor Leonore Moncond’huy said, adding that it “demonstrated rather serious developments in society”.
Retailleau, a member of the right-wing Republicans and seen as a hardliner on security issues, has called for the battle against drug violence to become a “nationwide effort” since becoming interior minister in Prime Minister Michel Barnier’s shaky minority government.
“The ‘narco thugs’ have no limits any more… These shootouts aren’t happening in South America, they’re happening in Rennes, in Poitiers… we’re at a tipping point,” Retailleau told BFMTV. (AFP)
•France’s Interior Minister Retailleau said a shooting at a restaurant late on Thursday in Poitiers led to a brawl involving hundreds of rival gang membersImage: Paoloni Jeremy/ABACA/picture alliance
