Successive murders in France’s second-largest city have cast a grim light on the growing use of teenage contract killers by rival drug lords in Marseille, the subject of a new book by a trio of French journalists that explores an alarming development in the port city’s deadly drug wars.
When police entered Matéo’s home in a leafy suburb of Marseille, hours after his car was spotted at the scene of a deadly shooting, the 18-year-old responded with adolescent bravado, reportedly telling officers they were lucky he wasn’t carrying a gun, or else he would have “died weapons drawn”.
