The National Assembly of France voted 369-68 Tuesday in favor of a sweeping new law aimed to address an uptick in drug-related crime. The new law will create a specialized public prosecutor’s office designed to investigate and combat organized crime.

The law overhauls a broad set of reforms intended to address organized drug trafficking. Its scope includes strengthening punishments against offenders who use minors in the commission of their crimes, allowing shops to be closed to combat money laundering, seizing assets until owners can prove they were obtained lawfully, tightening restrictions and surveillance around ports and aircraft, and creating new strategies for law enforcement to prosecute organized networks by providing legal protections for and protecting the anonymity of informants.

The law is heavily based on a 2024 report published by the Senate titled “A Necessary Wake-Up Call: Getting Out of the NarcoTrafficking Trap.” The report highlighted an “explosion in cocaine trafficking worldwide,” describing France as “overwhelmed” by drug trafficking. Expressing concern over drug trafficker’s “ability to adapt to repression and diversify their methods of action,” the report argued that Europe’s normal approaches to law enforcement were ineffective and outdated.

From corruption to money laundering to a lack of coordination, Tuesday’s law mirrors many of the priorities of the Senate report. The report emphasized alarm over large, sophisticated, drug trafficking networks, characterizing them as “economic operators who think in business terms,” describing them as “ultra-capitalists” who are “free from regulatory constraints.” It called special attention to the drug trafficking and violence that has descended upon medium-sized towns and rural areas and has subjected citizens to “veritable scenes of war.”

The law was passed on the heels of increasing concern across Europe about organized drug crime. Europe has become the world’s top cocaine market, where authorities seized a record 315 metric tonnes of cocaine in 2021. In France, the release of the 2024 Senate report coincided with a high-profile manhunt for drug trafficker Mohamed Amra, who broke out of prison, killing two guards in the process. The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime highlights the role of Balkan maritime smugglers who ship drugs from Latin America.

The report was the bipartisan creation of Jérôme Durain and Étienne Blanc, Senators from the Socialist and Republican blocs respectively. Similarly, Tuesday’s law passed with overwhelming support from most parties, with only France Unbowed opposed. France Unbowed expressed concern that the law did not address the root causes of the drug trade. “We still believe that this bill will be, for the most part, inefficient,” Ugo Bernalicis, a France Unbowed lawmaker, told the National Assembly on Tuesday.