It’s a phrase entered by violence into the vocabulary of the French. « Narchomicide »contraction of “narcobanditry” and “murder” constructed on the mannequin of “feminicide”was created in 2023 by the previous prosecutor of Marseille Dominique Laurens. That yr, nearly 50 people were killed within the Marseille metropolis, linked to a clan warfare in opposition to a backdrop of drug trafficking.
Journalists, attorneys, magistrates… The time period has since been extensively used, going past the division of Bouches-du-Rhône. Three years later, “narchomicide” makes its entry into the brand new version of Petit Robert, alongside some 150 other words and expressions. The definition is concise: “A homicide linked to drug trafficking.” “We’re not actually within the notion of settling scores, however actually on homicides linked to narco-banditry,” Dominique Laurens defined on the time to France Info.
An issue recognized
“Assassination or homicide below the pretext of drug trafficking shouldn’t be an aggravating circumstance in our Penal Code,” underlines Senator LR from Rhône, Etienne Blanc. However the truth that this phrase is within the vocabulary exhibits that, within the sphere of crime, the query of drug trafficking takes a well-identified, even preponderant, place.” The elected official is co-rapporteur, with PS senator from Saône-et-Loire Jérôme Durain, of a parliamentary inquiry on the subject in France. Their conclusions are on the origin of the law against drug trafficking adopted final summer season.
For the senator, the denial of “the facility in numbers, violence and cash of those felony organizations” has given method to an “awakening of conscience”. “That we search for a selected phrase is the mark of concern and the identification of a specific downside in our society,” continues Etienne Blanc. And added: “And if we establish it, then which means it’s severe. »
A label of overbidding
However the relevance of this neologism is topic to debate. Clotilde Champeyrache, director of the safety, protection and intelligence division of the Conservatory of Arts and Crafts (Cnam) and specialist within the mafia, deplores an “outbidding”. “ Narcoterrorismnarco-State… We add the prefix in entrance of the whole lot and we shine all of the highlight on a single side: drug trafficking “, she explains. However what about different types of unlawful and felony actions? “This distorts the angle and prevents us from seeing the whole ecosystem round felony organizations,” provides the specialist.
Among the many principal blind spots, in line with her, the fate of minors, usually recruited on social networks by organized crime. “They’re due to this fact not a part of felony drug trafficking organizations, they’re youngsters who fulfill a contract for cash as they may do for different (unlawful actions),” she factors out. In 2025, Jean-François Gayraud, normal commissioner of the nationwide police and essayist, identified to AFP an “ambiguity” on this time period, which “might additionally recommend that gangsters are content material to kill one another. However nothing might be farther from the reality.”
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“We’ve the impression that there’s a label granted to actions which existed earlier than however which aroused much less emotion,” provides Clotilde Champeyrache. The settling of scores and outbreaks of violence have been a part of the felony world for a very long time. Having to invent this time period to emphasise that it’s linked to drug trafficking doesn’t essentially add a lot. » Worse nonetheless, this label of “narco” might even be “valorizing” since it’s prone to arouse worry or media pleasure.
