French Justice Minister Announces Arrests Linked to Prison Attacks

A wave of attacks in mid-April included prisons being hit with gunfire, and staff cars and homes being targeted with arson attacks.

A member of the regional intervention and security team (ERIS13) stands in front of the Aix-Luynes Penitentiary Center in Aix-en-Provence, France, dated April 15, 2025. Manon Cruz /Reuters

French justice minister Gerald Darmanin has announced that suspects have been arrested in connection with multiple attacks carried out against French prisons.

“I would like to thank the magistrates and law enforcement officials who arrested early this morning those presumed to have been behind the attacks against our prisons and prison staff,” wrote Darmanin on the social media platform X on April 28.

“May the law and the Republic prevail in our relentless fight against drug trafficking,” he added.

Authorities are probing a spate of coordinated attacks on prison facilities since mid-April, including arson attacks on staff cars and homes, AK-47 gunfire, and sprayed graffiti at multiple sites such as Villepinte, Nanterre, Aix-Luynes, and Valence.

In the post, Darmanin shared an article by broadcaster RTL France which said that around 20 arrests had been made, according to its sources. The Epoch Times has not been able to independently verify this number.

RTL said that the “wave of large-scale arrests” took place in the Paris region, but also in Marseille, Bordeaux, and Lyon in the early hours of the morning.

Darmanin has previously blamed drug traffickers.

“The French Republic is facing up to the problem of drug trafficking and is taking measures that will massively disrupt the criminal networks,” he said.

The unrest could also be linked to pro-prisoner activist groups.

The letters “DDPF”—an acronym for “Défense des Droits des Prisonniers Français” (Defense of the Rights of French Prisoners) continue to be tagged on attack sites.

Francetvinfo previously reported that the group DDPF—believed to be a far-left collective—claimed responsibility for the attacks.

“We are not terrorists; we are here to defend human rights inside prisons,” the group stated.

Talking to French media Europe 1 on April 15, Darmanin was asked why he believed that it was drug gangs, rather than the “ultra-left,” who were attacking prisons.

Darmanin said he was “not ruling anything out,” but when people “fire Kalashnikovs” at prisons, that’s more the “modus operandi of delinquents—young criminals who might be paid a few thousand euros to do that kind of thing.”

“Social media now creates these kinds of mimetic moments that are indeed aimed at testing key areas of the country, at pushing the state back, at making prison officers afraid, at getting them to possibly call for a strike, and at sparking debates about whether the Minister of Justice is going too far in his firmness,” he said.

“So, we’re not going to back down despite the threats.”

In a statement on April 26, French prison union Syndicat Force Ouvrière Justice described the attacks as of “unprecedented gravity” warning that they have left staff with physical and psychological scars as they have been attacked at home, on duty, or even as they were leaving work.

Last year, French Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau warned that the emergence of “narco-enclaves” posed a serious threat to the country.

A deadly shootout on Nov. 1, 2024, in the once-peaceful French town of Poitiers, historically known for its medieval churches, resulted in the death of a 15-year-old boy, who was shot in the head—and left the nation shocked.

The gunfight, which involved hundreds of people, was the latest in a wave of drug-related crimes that has transformed cities such as Poitiers, Rennes, and Marseille into battlegrounds, where even children are caught in the crossfire—shot, stabbed, and burned alive.

In Poitiers, Retailleau raised alarms about the rise of these “narco-enclaves,” comparing the situation to the growing control that drug cartels have in Mexico.

Retailleau said that the country faces two choices: “Either there is a general mobilization, or there is the Mexicanization of the country” or risk the formation of gang-controlled “enclaves, mini-states, narco-enclaves” in French territory.