French prisons targeted in drug-related 'terrorist attack,' minister says

France’s justice minister said Tuesday that gun and arson attacks on at least six prisons around the country were acts of terrorism.

France’s justice minister said Tuesday that gun and arson attacks on at least six prisons around the country were acts of terrorism directed at security officials charged with guarding some of the nation’s most hardened crime kingpins.

Visiting Toulon prison in southern France, whose entrance was shot at with an AK-47 automatic rifle, Justice Minister Gerald Darmanin said he could not be sure if the attacks were linked to government efforts to clamp down on France’s fast-growing drug trade.

But he said authorities were making life much harder for imprisoned gangsters, and the government would not shy away from tackling drug crime, which has boosted support for the far right.

“The Republic will not back down,” he told reporters. “These are extremely serious crimes ... an attack on the public prison service, that is, a terrorist attack.”

Years of record South American cocaine imports to Europe have transformed local drug markets, sparking a wave of violence.