A “blue night” at the heart of a dark year in Marseille, where drug banditry left 49 dead and more than a hundred injured in 2023. That night, from April 2 to 3, the macabre toll of drug regulations account has already caused 13 victims in the Marseille city when new shootings break out. But “it is unprecedented, in terms of the number of deaths and injuries,” recalls Rudy Manna, spokesperson for the Alliance Police union. We had rarely seen this in Marseille, despite the incredible rate of violence and the number of score-settling. »
This Sunday evening, around 11:30 p.m., the first Kalashnikov bursts were heard in the town of Castellas. Two young people, aged 21 and 23, were found dead, several others, injured, were treated. On the ground, around forty bullets were found. Less than 500 meters away, emergency services treated two other injured people in the town of Aygalades. Around 12:40 a.m., another shooting took place, this time in the Joliette district, close to downtown Marseille. The victims are 14, 15 and 16 years old. Only the youngest will survive her injuries.
A “symbolic” night
In barely an hour, the night left, according to the final toll, four dead and around ten injured. It is through her that Eric Miguet and Jean-Guillaume Bayard, journalists at Provence, have chosen to start their podcast “Cartel Nord” which deciphers, over several seasons like “The Wire”, the drug trafficking which is plaguing Marseille. Usually used for attacks in Corsica and terrorism, the term “blue night” here refers to the numerous emergency lights and police forces that roamed the city on this dramatic night.
“This night is symbolic by the intensity of the violence, the capacity of two rival gangs to respond almost instantly, the youth of the targeted profiles, the small hands of trafficking, and the profile of the main suspect in the shooting of la Joliette,” deciphers Eric Miguet. Very quickly, the judicial police followed the trail of Mattéo, barely 18 years old, suspected of being the hitman who killed the two young people from Joliette.
The day after this “blue night”, Frédérique Camilleri, then police chief of Bouches-du-Rhône, spoke of a “vendetta”, about the war in which drug traffickers were waging. And more particularly two groups who are competing for the four deal points in La Paternelle, a city in the northern districts. “This night is not a tipping point, things come from much further away, and we have gone up a notch each time in this gang war,” recalls Hassen Hammou, founder of the collective “Too Jeune to die “.
The war between DZ Mafia and Yoda
“This night is a harbinger of what will happen throughout 2023, and the general public is also becoming aware of the rejuvenation of victims linked to drug trafficking,” observes Rudy Manna. In 2023, according to a report from the Marseille prosecutor’s office, 73% of murders and attempted homicides linked to drug trafficking find their origins in the DZ Mafia and Yoda dispute, two rival clans of La Paternelle which over the months reach a sinister level. fame. And whose conflict takes root in February 2023, during an evening in Thailand as told in an episode of “Cartel Nord”.
A year after this “blue night”, the recent lull, after arrests on both sides, including that of the leader of Yoda in Morocco, and “clearance” operations, leaves everyone cautious. “Nature abhors a vacuum, I continue to believe that we must put in place sustainable policies,” enjoins Hassen Hammou. “No triumphalism” either for Rudy Manna: “Network operations dry up the networks, but the police response cannot do everything. »