A Nursery Evacuated: How Drug Gangs Are Redrawing the Boundaries of French Authority

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A Nursery Evacuated: How Drug Gangs Are Redrawing the Boundaries of French Authority

 

In the Paris suburb of Saint-Ouen-sur-Seine, a decision that stunned many signaled a sobering truth about France’s growing struggle with drug gangs: local authorities moved young children out of a nursery school because they could no longer ensure their safety. The Émile Zola nursery school, located just a short Métro ride from central Paris, had for years operated under the shadow of escalating street-level drug activity. Teachers had grown used to finding small cellophane packets—presumably filled with drugs—flung over the wall into the schoolyard by dealers fleeing the police.

 

Occasionally, children would pick up these packets and even bring them home, much to the horror of their parents.

 

This spring, however, a canister of laughing gas thrown from a tower block window shattered the school library’s window, marking a dangerous escalation. “It really worried the teachers,” said Sébastien Phan, an opposition councillor in Saint-Ouen. “If it had hit a child standing in the courtyard, it could have killed them.”

 

In response, the council opted to relocate the four nursery classes—comprising around 60 children aged between three and six—to two nearby buildings. Though temporary, the move is set to last until September of next year, giving the council time to install CCTV and improve security at the original site. The decision, however, struck many as a quiet acknowledgment that the police could no longer control the area.

 

France’s justice minister, Gérald Darmanin, captured global attention last week when he said there were no longer any “safe spaces” in the country free from drug dealers. For families at Émile Zola, this came as no revelation. Walking with Phan through the neighborhood, one is struck by the surreal calm of two young men seated on stools in an alley—likely lookout scouts for the drug trade. “They wait there patiently for hours. They are very calm,” Phan observed. Just moments later, they raised an alarm cry as police sprinted past in pursuit of a suspected dealer. The warning worked—the dealer escaped.

 

Mayor Karim Bouamrane initiated the proposal to move the school, a measure overwhelmingly supported by parents. He rejected claims that this was a concession to criminal elements. “It would have been a failure if the children’s safety hadn’t been guaranteed,” he said. But Darmanin disagreed, calling the relocation a “defeat for public authority.” He added, “I would never have agreed to the relocation of a school. The Republic must never back down.”

 

Rodolphe Continant, a 40-year-old printer whose four-year-old son Ilya was affected by the move, echoed that frustration. “Most parents were afraid,” he said. “But we are not just parents, we are also citizens and should defend ourselves against such things. Closing the school means that we have lost. It means that drug trafficking is now normal and that we would rather close the school than deal with the problem.”

 

France’s drug problem is not isolated to Saint-Ouen. According to the European Union Drugs Agency, France has one of the highest rates of cannabis and cocaine use in Europe. A French study shows nearly 10 percent of the population has tried cocaine at least once, while police seized more than 53 tonnes of the drug last year—double the amount from the year before.

 

Frédéric Ploquin, a journalist specializing in organized crime, said drug dealers have increasingly moved into rural areas to escape city police pressure. “The gendarmerie, who are responsible for policing the countryside, at first did not see them coming,” he explained. But arrests in these regions have surged. The Gard area, for example, saw drug trafficking arrests jump over 150 percent between 2018 and 2023.

 

In a shift dubbed the “Ubérisation” of the drug trade, dealers now also rely on home delivery and encrypted apps, reducing their visibility and risk. “The dealers are flexible and reactive, so they switched to home delivery. It’s less risky,” Ploquin said.

 

Darmanin, who served as interior minister during much of the recent surge in drug activity, has called for the adoption of facial recognition technology similar to systems used in Singapore and Dubai. Meanwhile, mayors are pushing for powers to evict families of known drug dealers from public housing. Yet the underlying issue remains: as long as demand for drugs persists, supply will follow.

 

“It’s like a pyramid,” said Phan. “The guetteurs are at the bottom but they still earn €100 a day, which is a lot of money for a 14-year-old.” For those who rise to become dealers or manage dealing points, the rewards are even greater. “After that, it is very difficult to reach out to these young people... and say, ‘Listen kid, we will try and get you a job that will pay you the minimum wage.’”

 

Fanchon, a 29-year-old teacher and mother of a three-year-old at Émile Zola, has already made her decision. “Living here, I am always worried about my son, knowing the environment that he is growing up in,” she said. “That’s why we decided to move.”

 

  Adapted by ASEAN Now from The Times  2025-05-12