French Prisons Attacked After Clampdown on Drug Traffickers

France's national terrorism office has launched an investigation into a wave of apparently coordinated attacks at several prisons across the country believed to be linked to a government clampdown on drug traffickers.

- Kim Willsher

Gunmen with automatic weapons opened fire on the entrance to Toulon prison in southern France in the early hours of yesterday, while in recent days cars have been set alight outside four other jails, and in Marseille a residential building housing prison guards was attacked.

The attacks came as the French parliament prepares to approve a new law increasing the power of police investigating drug dealers, toughening prison conditions for convicted traffickers and creating a new prosecutor's office responsible for investigating organised crime.

Soaring cocaine imports from South America have sparked drug-linked violence in France where seizures of the drug are at a historic high, police say. Drug gangs traditionally based in such cities as Marseille have expanded into smaller regional towns unused to drug violence.