Drug trafficking: Bordeaux and Talence join a program to divert minors from drug dealing

The two municipalities were selected as part of a national plan to combat "this new form of slavery."

" The situation is often the same. Families in great social difficulty or some failing, teenagers, mainly boys, who are seriously failing at school, and who have the misfortune of growing up in neighborhoods where drug dealing has always been present. For them, it is almost inevitable that they will sooner or later be confronted with the issue of trafficking," explains Dr. Nicolas Prisse, president of Mildeca, the Interministerial Mission to Combat Drugs, while meeting with a few journalists on July 17 in Paris to present the Limits program.

Launched in 2020 in three pilot areas, this program has a budget of €6 million, funded by criminal assets confiscated in drug cases. It supports highly localized initiatives, often at the neighborhood level, that address the appeal of criminal networks to adolescents.

"What we're trying to do is to mobilize all the stakeholders involved around very operational partnerships: justice, police, associations, elected officials, landlords, without ever opposing prevention and repression, and to dispel myths, to provide young people with objective information on the reality of trafficking, on this life of a teenage dealer, which is nonetheless horrific. We're not far from a new form of slavery," Nicolas Prisse emphasizes. "There's a huge lack of awareness. For example, teenagers who become 'lookouts' [responsible for raising the alarm in the event of the police arrival, editor's note] think it's not that serious, because they stay away from drugs, because they don't necessarily see them. However, these minors are putting their finger in a spiral that can end very, very badly."

In France, 18 communities have joined the program in 2024, including Le Bouscat, which received €80,000 for prevention initiatives in the Écus and Théophile-Gautier neighborhoods. Fifteen others have just joined, including, in the region, Bordeaux (for a project currently focused on the Grand-Parc) and Talence, which are expected to sign an agreement with Mildeca this fall.

In Bordeaux, the planned actions are a continuation of the general assembly organized by Bordeaux Mayor Pierre Hurmic on June 20th on the prevention of drug use and trafficking . Nicolas Prisse was there. Specifically, according to information provided by the town hall, CM2 and ^5e pupils will attend awareness workshops to equip themselves with "psychosocial skills" and learn to say "no" and resist pressure from traffickers or those around them.

Today, in France, "it is estimated that nearly 10,000 minors are involved in drug trafficking. They no longer necessarily come from the drug-dealing neighborhood, as they are increasingly recruited via social media," explains Nicolas Prisse. "The average age of the 'little hands' exploited by criminal networks is around 15-16 years old, with increasing use of very young minors, sometimes as young as 10."