Milieu (organized crime in France)
| Founding location | France |
|---|---|
| Territory | Most major cities in France |
| Ethnicity | Predominantly French, Corsican, (Yeniche and Manouche), French Maghrebi (predominantly Algerian) and French Blacks. |
| Criminal activities | Arms trafficking, Drug trafficking, Money laundering, arson, Assault, counterfeiting, Extortion, Fraud, Human trafficking, illegal gambling, Kidnapping, Murder, prostitution, Racketeering, Theft. |
The Milieu is a category of French organized criminals operating in France. However it often works with foreign organised crime. Criminal groups associated with the Milieu work in every major city in France, but are mostly concentrated in Marseille, Grenoble, Paris, and Lyon.
The term Milieu literally means middle and figuratively society or environment and refers to the set of criminal figures operating in the French metropolitan areas who are known to the public for being involved in high level organized crime. This category does not include criminal organizations that were formed in another country, such as the Italian Camorra, the Albanian mafia, Chinese Triads, Serbian mafia or the Turkish Kurd PKK- or Sri Lankan LTTE-affiliated criminal clans that are known to operate in France.
Instead, milieu is a type of criminal organization founded in France with long-standing ties to the country. Currently the four most significant pillars of the homegrown "French" underworld are:
The "Milieu" was represented until the end of the 1990s by "Godfathers" ("Parrains" in French), who generally controlled a city. The "traditional Milieu" is the direct successor of this "Godfathers era".
In Paris, from the 1920s to the 1980s, the predominant areas of criminal activities were prostitution places (Pigalle, Rue Saint-Denis). Pigalle was the neighbourhood of many famous gangsters of the French capital (especially Corsican Godfathers like Jean-Paul Stefani, Ange Saliceti etc.). Many influential gangs were based in Paris, such as the Tractions Avant gang during the 1940s and 1950s, which was involved in many robberies throughout the country. During the 1970s the most powerful gang in Paris was the Zemmour crime family (a Jewish/pied noir clan). The Zemmour brothers controlled prostitution in the French capital and were considered to be Godfathers of Paris before their assassinations in the early 1980s. After Zemmour's fall, prostitution has been gradually deserted by the milieu and the major criminal areas of Paris became the poor suburbs (Montreuil, Saint-Ouen, Aubervilliers, the Banlieue Sud etc.) with drug trafficking, robberies and many other activities. Since the 1980s, many gangsters from the Banlieues or the poor neighbourhoods were prominent in the Paris underworld (Claude Genova until his assassination in 1994, the Gang des postiches until their disbandment in 1986, the Hornec brothers, the Banlieue Sud mobsters, Rédoine Faïd and many others since the 1990s).
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