France Puts Police Judiciary in Charge of National Fight Against Organized Crime

Overview

• Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez, who laid out the plan in Marseille on Thursday, named the National Directorate of the Judicial Police as the state coordinator and called the crackdown an "absolute priority."
• The judicial police will now pool and analyze intelligence from other police units, the gendarmerie and customs to spot links and select the highest‑value targets.
• A ministry circular casts organized crime as a strategic threat with major financial power and the capacity to unsettle core state functions, with Sirasco warning about crypto-linked kidnappings, money laundering and threats to judges and prison staff.
• Rivalry has not vanished, as a recent DZ Mafia operation led by gendarmes angered Marseille’s judicial police even though the network took root in the city and has spread to several departments.
• The judicial police are set to serve as the operational arm of a new national anti–organized crime prosecutor modeled on counter‑terror structures, and a Sirasco report due Friday flags growing interest from foreign mafias.