The names of two French prison officers shot dead in an ambush to free prisoners linked to gangland drug killings have been revealed, as police continue a major search for missing fugitives.
Fabrice Moello, 52, and Arnaud Garcia, 34, were killed and three others seriously injured in a brazen attack on a prison convoy from which inmates were fleeing on Tuesday. They were the first deaths of French prison officers in the line of duty since 1992.
Hundreds of prison officers staged protests across France on Wednesday, blocking prison entrances and burning pallets and tires in memory of the two men. A minute’s silence was held at 11am.
At a prison near Marseille, more than 100 prison officers gathered under a banner that read: “We have no money to die.”
Many police officers said they would perform only minimal service on Wednesday. The union called for increased security and restrictions on the transfer of prisoners between prisons and courts.
Some officers complained of poor conditions and violence in France’s overcrowded prisons. “If you put three people in a nine-square-meter cell, when there should only be one person in it, of course there will be tension and incidents,” said Erwan Saudi of the FO Justice union.
Dominic Garcia, the father of one of the victims, said his son’s killer must be brought to justice. “My son was killed! This ambush was planned, prepared and planned,” he told French radio. “This act must not go unpunished.”
The French justice minister will meet with prison officers’ unions on Wednesday afternoon.
Hundreds of police and military police continued to search for the escaped inmates and the gunman.
The ambush of the prison van occurred late Tuesday morning on a toll road in Encarville, in northern France’s Eure region. The prisoner was interrogated by a judge in Rouen, the capital of Normandy, before being transferred to a prison in the town of Evreux.
Paris prosecutors said the prison van collided head-on with a stolen Peugeot car while passing through a toll booth. The prison vehicle was followed by an Audi, from which hooded gunmen dressed in black emerged and fired at both vehicles in the prison convoy using automatic weapons.
Paris prosecutors named the escaped prisoner as Mohamed Amra, born in 1994, who was convicted last week of aggravated robbery and charged with kidnapping resulting in death.
France’s anti-organized crime agency has handed over the case to prosecutors to locate the fugitive and his accomplices and investigate what appears to be a carefully orchestrated conspiracy.
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Sources close to the case told Agence France-Presse that Amla was involved in drug trafficking and is suspected of ordering the murder of a gang.
Amra’s lawyer, Hugues Vigier, said the prisoner, who had attempted to escape by sawing through the bars of his cell over the weekend, was shocked by the “unacceptable” and “insane” violence. “This does not match the impression I had of him,” the lawyer told BFMTV.
The incident occurred on the same day that France’s Senate released a damning report that found government measures had failed to stop France’s drug industry from flourishing.
Commission President Jérôme Durand said that although France was “not yet a drug state”, drug trafficking was still a “direct threat to national interests” and that the government’s anti-drug efforts were “not meeting the challenge”. .
Law and order is a major issue in French politics ahead of next month’s European elections, and the prison van ambush prompted a fierce reaction from politicians, particularly those on the far right.
Right-wing and far-right politicians had visited the prison on Wednesday to support protesting prison officers.
“Barbarism is affecting our society,” Interior Minister Gerard Darmanin told French radio. He said the incident was not only a sign of France’s failure, but also of a global failure in drug trafficking.
