France is to boost its military and police presence in its Caribbean overseas territory of Guadeloupe, in a bid to clamp down on escalating cocaine trafficking in the region that is driving unprecedented levels of violence. Local officials in both Guadeloupe and Martinique say they're finally being heard, but one expert in organised crime fears the measures are too little, too late.
A "record" 37.5 tonnes of cocaine were seized in France in the first six months of this year, compared to 47 tonnes in the whole of 2024 – an increase of 45 percent.
These figures – revealed in a confidential note from late July from the national anti-drug trafficking agency (Ofast) – prompted Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau to describe the proliferation of cocaine in France as a "white tsunami".
More than half of those 47 tonnes came from, or was intercepted in, the French Caribbean territories of Guadeloupe and Martinique – whose combined population is little more than 750,000.
"It’s easy to imagine the impact this has on the local population," says investigative journalist Jerome Pierrat, an expert on organised crime. "An explosion in violence, in the use of firearms and in local drug use... it’s a major destabilisation of society."
According to a recent report from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), Martinique and Guadeloupe have become major gateways for cocaine and marijuana entering mainland France.
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From South America to Europe
The reasons for the French Caribbean becoming a key entry and transit point for South American cocaine en route to Europe are largely geographical.
The French Antilles are on the doorstep of South America’s cocaine-producing countries of Colombia, Peru and Bolivia, and close to Venezuela – one of the two exit countries for cocaine, along with Brazil.
Global production continues to increase, with the Andean countries producing 2,700 tonnes in 2022, more than double the amount produced in 2010.
Yet the traditional North American market has plateaued, Peirrat explains, with some users there turning to synthetic drugs such as fentanyl. The United States' anti-drug trafficking measures have also forced cartels to look elsewhere – notably further south.
"Traffickers are looking for people with money to sell cocaine to, so they tend to turn to Europe, Australia, Asia, Japan and a part of China. The second biggest market in terms of purchasing power is Europe," explains Pierrat.
In addition, because they are part of France the Antilles are not subject to extra customs checks when transporting goods to the mainland. And Guadeloupe, with its 700 kilometres of coastline and small islands, is particularly difficult to monitor.
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Record seizures
In late February, the French Navy seized 8.3 tonnes of cocaine from a cargo ship off the coast of Martinique. In March, 1.2 tonnes were seized near Martinique.
In June, 2.4 tonnes were seized on a "go-fast vessel" – a type of a small, fast powerboat favoured by smugglers – near the US Virgin Islands, while in July, French Armed Forces intercepted close to five tonnes on two ships in the Caribbean.
On the French mainland, authorities made a major haul in January – two tonnes of cocaine, valued at €130 million – in the northern port of Le Havre, France's main maritime gateway.
Further along the chain, Pierrat highlights a recent haul on the Balzac housing estate in Vitry-sur-Seine, a working class suburb of Paris: "160kg of pure cocaine that had come over from Guadeloupe in a fake removals vehicle."
While some drugs are still transported by plane, the cartels prefer to use sea routes for ever-larger quantities. Shipments are dispatched from Colombia’s and Venezuela’s Caribbean coasts and routed via islands such as Dominica, before landing on the many beaches of the French Antilles aboard fast boats.
Once in the Antilles, cocaine is stored locally and then shipped on to ports in northern Europe such as Rotterdam, Antwerp, Hamburg, and Le Havre.
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Surge in violence
In the fight against trafficking, French authorities are facing criminal networks capable of changing their strategies regularly.
"They are now highly structured, no longer work with intermediaries, deal directly with South American drug producers and are capable of exporting cocaine to Europe," Guadeloupe's Attorney General Eric Maurel recently told France Info.
He has also warned that criminal gangs in Guadeloupe "seem to be evolving towards mafia-style structures".
Pierrat says local officials in the Antilles have been "sounding the alarm for two or three years now," – but to little effect.
In June this year, Maurel, alongside another judge, Michael Janas, gave a press conference warning that drug trafficking and the proliferation of firearms was driving an unprecedented surge in violence in Guadeloupe.
“All warning lights are flashing red. We are facing a wall of crime,” they told reporters. “We are at a tipping point. It’s now or never.”
The judges said that between January and June this year, Guadeloupe recorded 28 violent homicides, along with 111 attempted murders and 300 armed robberies.
Neighbouring Martinique has also seen a rise in violence, with 16 homicides since January, 13 involving firearms.
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"This is no longer a series of isolated incidents; it is a spiral of death taking root in our daily lives. And yet, the State looks the other way," wrote Serge Letchimy, president of the executive council of Martinique, in an op-ed published in Le Monde in June.
According to Letchimy’s figures, only 1,400 of the 188,000 containers passing through Martinique’s port in Fort-de-France in 2024 were inspected by customs – the result of chronic understaffing.
On 19 August, four MPs from Guadeloupe published a letter to the Interior and Economy ministers, demanding immediate reinforcement to fight the growing instability fuelled by drug trafficking.
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New measures
The French government appears to have heard their call. On a recent visit to the Antilles, Retailleau announced a raft of measures, including 13 additional investigators to bolster the ranks of Ofast.
A local ballistics lab will be opened, meaning forensic samples will no longer have to be sent to the mainland, and two mobile gendarmerie squads and two marine units are to be deployed.
Paris will also provide radar systems to monitor the strategic Dominica and Les Saintes channels and a drone to survey Guadeloupe’s coastline. Checks at ports and airports are to be reinforced.
While acknowledging that France’s planned budget cuts meant it was limited in what it could provide, Retailleau insisted: “The Republic will not give an inch on public order. We will not let these territories become a lawless zone."
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'No quick fix'
Guadeloupe MPs Olivier Serva and Max Mathiasin, two of the authors of the open letter, expressed their “relative satisfaction” after months of lobbying for reinforcements.
“I heard announcements, not empty words,” Serva told local radio. “I’m satisfied. But we expect more on regional cooperation and faster implementation.”
Mathiasin called the measures “a step in the right direction” but warned they’d have to see them in action.
In Pierrat's opinion, given the size of the territory and its waters, 13 more investigators may not make much difference. He added that there is no quick fix for the situation, and suggesting otherwise is political posturing.
"The problem is Retailleau doesn’t have time. Elections are fast approaching, all this stuff has to be visible, talked about, it has to look like they’re doing something. But if you really want to curb trafficking you'd lay on 200 more investigators, 200 drones, you’d throw in a billion euros. And it will still take time," he says.
Another concern is the expansion of the main ports in Guadeloupe and Martinique as part of the "Antilles Hub" project, which aims to transform them into a major regional logistics and maritime centre.
An additional 300,000 containers are expected to transit through the ports each year. While this is intended to give the region a much needed economic boost, Pierrat fears it will also boost trafficking.
"Traffickers are very happy," he says "It’ll be very hard to monitor all the extra containers, even with a couple of extra radars or mobile scanners. And even if you could afford to install loads more scanners that would slow traffic down, [which] makes no commercial sense when you’re trying to attract new business."
Acknowledging these concerns, Retailleau said a mission from the General Secretariat of the Sea will be conducted within the coming weeks to "audit all port processes" both in Guadeloupe and Martinique.
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Forgotten territories
With unemployment in the Antilles more than double that on the French mainland – 15.7 percent in Guadeloupe and 12.8 percent in Martinique, compared to the national average of 7.4 percent – plus a far higher cost of living and lower wages, the economic conditions are ripe for spreading corruption.
"The French overseas departments have the highest corruption rates in France, including civil servants," says Pierrat. "But that’s the corollary of drug-trafficking – corruption and violence."
He also points out that the French Antilles are no longer just a transit hub for cocaine, but indeed a growing local market for it – spurred on by the fact local traffickers are paid in cocaine.
"I’ve been writing and making documentaries about drug trafficking for 30 years now," he says. "It’s been growing for decades. We saw it coming. And yet all of a sudden you get the impression it sprung up over the last couple of years.
"For years it was a forgotten corner of France. The guys in French Guiana, Martinique, Guadeloupe... nobody really gives a damn. So I’m not very hopeful or optimistic that the situation in the French Antilles will change any time soon, unfortunately for them."
