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Emmanuel Macron has warned that those behind a wave of apparently coordinated attacks on French prisons and staff will be “found, tried and punished”.
The president’s comments came after at least a dozen assaults on French jails in the past three days. In one attack, gunmen using automatic weapons fired at the entrance to Toulon prison in the south of France.
In other incidents, cars have been set alight and there have been vandalism and arson attempts on prison wardens’ accommodation.
In several of the attacks, the acronym DDPF – Defence of French Prisoners – has been discovered. Le Parisien reported that a prisoner on conditional release had been arrested in the Essonne, south of Paris, on Wednesday morning in connection with the group.
The man was alleged to have been part of an encrypted Telegram message group linked to the assaults. A post in the name of the DDPF made on Tuesday read: “We are not terrorists, we are here to defend human rights inside prisons.”
Telegram has said it has now deleted all the messages and said calling for violence and threats was “explicitly banned”.
French media described the attacks as a “declaration of war” by drug cartels after the government announced a crackdown on traffickers and a toughening of prison conditions for kingpins believed to be operating inside jails.
The justice minister, Gérald Darmanin, has announced his intention to put 200 convicted traffickers in new ultra-high-security prisons this summer, where they will be held in isolation with limited access to visitors and telephone calls. Ministers are concerned about convicted drug dealers continuing to run their networks from behind bars.
“Certain people are trying to intimidate our prison staff and attack our prison establishments with unacceptable violence. They will be found, tried and punished,” Macron wrote on X.
He added the prison force was “carrying out its essential mission of defending the rule of law and keeping the peace with courage and dedication”.
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“I restate my full support and that of the nation to all agents of the ministry of justice,” Macron wrote.
Three vehicles were set alight outside Tarascon prison early on Wednesday morning in one of the latest attacks.
France’s specialist anti-terrorist unit has been brought in to investigate the attacks. It said in a statement it had been assigned the inquiry – instead of criminal investigators – because of that the “nature of the facts, the chosen targets and the coordination of the acts committed in several locations”.
In an interview on Wednesday, Darmanin said the assailants were attempting to “destabilise and intimidate the state”.
