A national police vehicle (illustration).
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F. Brenon / 20Minutes
A large police operation took place on Monday in the Gard, near Marseille (Bouches-du-Rhône) and in the North, according to sources close to the investigation.
It is part of an investigation into shootings that took place in Nîmes (Gard) at the beginning of the year, against a background of narco-banditism.
More than 100 police officers were mobilized for these searches and these arrests, confirmed these sources.
🔴Nîmes # SRPJ Montpellier mobilized wave of arrests narco banditry antenna Nîmes PJ BRI Raid.
15 people arrested in Nîmes and northern France and region.
Parisienne. @ procureurNimes @PoliceNationale @GDarmanin pic.twitter.com/dJG7JiyzSq
- hocine rouagdia (@hocinerouagdia) September 28, 2020
On February 10, Kalashnikov fire in the Pissevin district of Nîmes, one of the poorest in France, left three people injured, one of them seriously.
Fifteen days earlier had also taken place a similar shooting which did not result in any casualties.
"A war of rival gangs"
The mayor of Nîmes Jean-Paul Fournier had denounced "a war of rival gangs linked to the trafficking of arms and drugs".
Residents of the district had demonstrated on February 21 to launch a "cry for help" in the face of the increase in drug trafficking.
Recently, the interregional director of the judicial police Eric Arella had underlined that the phenomenon of settling of scores against a background of narco-bandistime, in decline in the Marseille region, was on the rise this year, especially in Nîmes and Perpignan (Pyrénées-Orientales) .
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Gard: The Pissevin district in Nîmes, one of the poorest in France, is angry and manifest
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