A bill "aiming to get France out the drug trafficking trap," tabled by a senator from the right (Etienne Blanc, from the Les Républicains, or LR, party) and one from the left (Jérôme Durain, Parti Socialiste or PS), was unanimously passed in the Sénat on February 4, amid a spirit of transparency and miraculous consensus. The matter was wrapped up in just a few days, with neither outbursts nor opposition. On Monday, March 17, the same bill arrived at the Assemblée Nationale, France's other house of parliament, in a very different political context, one where the left-right divide is set to make a comeback. Almost 665 amendments have been tabled, and are set to be debated over a whole week.

The bill's examination by the Assemblée law commission, 10 days ago, already hints at the intensity of the battle to come. Admittedly, the general structure of the Sénat's bill has not been changed: Creating a national prosecutor's office dedicated to the fight against organized crime, reinforcing the fight against money laundering, generalizing the status of state's evidence for people who "repent" and extending it to deadly crimes, etc. However, against all expectations, the text has been stripped of several important provisions, such as the introduction of a guilty plea procedure, the possibility of remotely activating smart objects to listen in on and film drug traffickers without their knowledge, or a measure to extend the maximum duration of police custody for "mules" to 120 hours.

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