Five people wounded in shootout linked to drug trafficking in France

Five people, including three teenagers, have been seriously injured following a shootout linked to drug trafficking in western France, in the latest such violence to involve children.

The violence erupted in front of a restaurant overnight in the western city of Poitiers and turned into a brawl involving up to 600 people, France’s Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau said on Friday.

“It started with a shootout at a restaurant and ended with a brawl between rival gangs that involved several hundred people,” Retailleau told French news channel BFM TV.

A 15-year-old boy wounded was in a critical condition, Retailleau said. A police source told Le Figaro newspaper that the boy had been shot in the head, and that two other teenagers, both aged 16, were among the injured.

Retailleau condemned the “Mexicanisation” of the country by “narco-traffickers” who “no longer have any limits”.

“These are traffickers who use the most ferocious means to settle scores and satisfy their lust for gain. It’s just that it’s not happening in South America, but in Rennes and Poitiers,” Retailleau said.

The interior minister said France was at a “tipping point” when it came to drug-related violence. He said he was planning to travel later in the day to northwestern Rennes, in Brittany, where a five-year-old was critically ill after being shot last Saturday.

‘Unacceptable violence’

The violence overnight in Poitiers happened in Place Coimbra, a known drug trafficking area, a police source told BFM TV. It started when shots were fired by individuals in a car, who then fled the scene, according to the source.

When police arrived, they found five people with bullet wounds and a dozen bullet holes in the front of a bar, and were attacked by local youths before a mass brawl broke out, BFM TV reported.

The local government has promised to deploy police reinforcements “as of today”.

The mayor of Poitiers, Léonore Moncond’huy, wrote on X that the shooting was a “new episode of unacceptable violence”, and said the age of those involved was “particularly worrying”.

The involvement and targeting of children in violence linked to drug trafficking has shaken France in recent months. For example, a spate of murders — one involving a 15-year-old burned alive and another committed by a 14-year-old hitman-for-hire — caused uproar in the southern city of Marseille last month.

In a separate incident, three people were shot in the Valence region in southeastern France on Thursday night.

The shooting is believed to be linked to drug trafficking, broke out in the car park of a nightclub in Saint-Péray (Ardèche), west of Valence, according to a police source.

The injured were aged between 22 and 24. One of the wounded was shot in the head and is in criticial condition, according to the source.