French cities impose curfews on children after drug violence

A number of French cities have imposed night-time curfews on young people following a spate of violence linked to drug trafficking.

Nîmes in the south was the latest to bring in measures, which authorities said were meant to prevent under 16s from being “exposed to violence” and to “contain tensions”. Additional police units will also be sent in.

Over the course of the last month several shootings – one in broad daylight – left one person dead and several injured.

Last week the body of a 19-year-old man was found partially burned on the outskirts of Nîmes.

Announcing the curfew – in force between 21:00 and 06:00 – mayor Jean-Paul Fournier said the situation had become “untenable” and that drug traffickers had created a “climate of fear and terror”.

Deputy mayor Richard Schieven said the curfew would protect minors not involved in the drug trade “but also those aged 12 or 13 who are exploited by drug traffickers”.

Béziers, 120km (75 miles) to the south-west, has had a curfew in place for children under 13 between 23:00 and 06:00 since last year and expanded it to under 15s in certain areas last March. “No 10-year-old out on the street at 02:00 is up to anything but mischief,” said mayor Robert Ménard in 2024.

Despite the measures, Béziers continues to be plagued by violence. At the weekend balaclava-clad youths lured police and then attacked them with fireworks, local media reported.

A similar incident occurred in Limoges in southwestern France. The city has also imposed curfew measures for under 13s for the duration of the summer holidays – but following violence involving 100 people at the weekend Mayor Émile Roger Lombertie said the results of the measures were “not good”.

“We had disturbances by young people, nobody managed to intercept and arrest them, and the curfew was useless,” Lombertie said, adding that more police was needed to enforce the measures.

Two years ago the there was outrage in Nimes when a 10-year-old boy was killed by a bullet in the Pissevin area of the city.

The latest developments confirm a growing trend that has seen drug violence expand beyond Marseille – the long-time epicentre of gang wars in France.

According to the interior ministry, 110 people died in France and more than 300 others were wounded in drug-related violence in 2024.

Justice Minister Gérard Darmanin and Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau have long insisted on the need to fight the scourge of the drugs trade.

Earlier this year they steered a bill through parliament which resulted in two maximum-security jails for drug barons, a new, dedicated branch of the prosecutors’ office, extra powers for investigators, and a special, protected status for informers.

Darmanin said on Tuesday that “the first 17 drug-traffickers, among them the most dangerous in our country”, were transferred to a high-security jail at Vendin-le-Vieil in northern France.

A wave of arson and gun attacks at French prisons in the spring was widely pinned on drugs gangs hitting back at the government’s crackdown.