Attackers targeted a prison near the French port city of Toulon overnight Monday to Tuesday, burning vehicles and firing shots at its walls, French authorities and a union said on Tuesday, adding that this was part of a series of attacks on the country’s prisons.
There were no reports of casualties. A union for prison workers, FO Justice, posted photos on X, formerly Twitter, of bullet holes in prison walls, saying that prisons had been attacked in the north, center and south of the country.
The office of France’s counterterrorism prosecutor said it would begin an investigation into the violence, which it said started on Sunday. The justice minister, Gérald Darmanin, said he would visit the Toulon-La Farlède prison on Tuesday in support of the officers there.
Mr. Darmanin suggested that drug traffickers had organized the attacks. The French newspaper Le Monde said the attacks were coordinated and mentioned other incidents in Villepinte and Nanterre, both suburbs of Paris; Valence, a city in southern France; and the southern port city of Marseille.
“Prisons are facing intimidation attempts ranging from the burning of vehicles to automatic gunfire,” Mr. Darmanin said in a post on social media. “The republic is confronted by drug trafficking and will take measures that will massively disrupt these criminal networks.”
France’s interior minister, Bruno Retailleau, condemned the attacks, saying the prisons had been targeted by thugs, and ordered the authorities to reinforce security at prisons and protect their workers.
France’s official prison watchdog warned in 2023 of overcrowding, unsanitary conditions and violence in the country’s prisons.
