Fatal Shooting in Sevran, France: Two Lives Lost in Another Deadly Attack outside Paris

Two men were shot to death this Sunday afternoon in Sevran, the same city on the outskirts of Paris where on Friday night a shooting in what appears to be a settling of accounts between rival drug trafficking gangs left one dead and four injured in France. According to the site specialized in event information Actu 17, the dead are two men aged 33 and 34 who were shot to death around 6:15 p.m. local time (4:15 p.m. GMT) on the street of Snowdrop in the neighborhood Basse. The murderer, who used a pistol, fled the scene, where they established a security perimeter and found around twenty bullet casings.

Authorities are betting on the trail of an act related to drug trafficking since the two victims had a history of drug trafficking and violence. This double murder occurred less than 48 hours after another action that is being investigated as a settling of accounts between rival gangs in the drug trade in Beaudottes, a neighborhood considered very conflictive. In that case, a 28-year-old man died and four others were injured by kalasnikov shots from an individual who, according to the first testimonies, was the co-pilot of a car that broke into the vicinity of the parking lot of the Micro Folie cultural center.

The mayor of Sevran, Stéphane Blanchet, noted in a statement after that first action that “such an incredible outbreak of violence does not occur by chance” but those responsible are “trafficking, dirty drug money”. The settling of accounts between groups of criminals has grown in France in the last times. French law enforcement officials recorded 85 deaths last year, 20% more than in 2022, 49 of them in Marseilles – a city in which some neighborhoods are gangrenous due to drug trafficking.

French law enforcement forces had carried out a large-scale anti-drug operation in various black spots throughout the country and in Sevran they dismantled a well-known trading place in the neighborhood of Rougemont. The violence stemming from drug trafficking and gang rivalries continues to be a serious issue in France.