By Dominique Vidalon
PARIS (Reuters) -French telecoms group Orange is right to temporarily close its site in Marseille to protect staff from problems related to drug gangs in the area, the country's employment minister said on Friday, calling for a bigger police presence.
Gang-related drug crime is on the rise in France and in particular in the Mediterranean port city, where the risks were highlighted by the murder this month of Mehdi Kessaci, the 20-year-old brother of anti-drug crime campaigner Amine Kessaci.
"Orange is taking a decision that is needed to protect its workers," Jean-Pierre Farandou told RTL radio, when asked about comments from an Orange official that it was closing the site in the Saint-Mauront area of Marseille from Friday to mid-December.
"This is one more sign that we need to give this country additional means to fight drug trafficking," Farandou said.
The company employs around 1,000 at the site in Marseille.
Sébastien Crozier, a director representing Orange staff members, told BFM TV that Orange had taken that decision "based on the information available to them, in addition to the information we have received from employees."
Crozier also described the current situation regarding that Marseille site as "absolutely critical".
Latin American cocaine shipments to Europe have led to more violence by organised crime groups across the continent, leaving dealers flush with cash and willing to fight it out to protect their lucrative patches, officials and analysts have said.
According to French newspaper Le Parisien, French bank BNP Paribas was planning to leave a site in northern Paris, where it employs 2,000 staff, to regroup them on other sites, also as a response to rising crime in the area.
Asked for comment, BNP Paribas did not mention crime, saying only that the relocation project was part of a broader redeployment of staff across its sites as the lease on the northern Paris site was running out.
(Reporting by Dominique Vidalon, additional reporting by Mathieu Rosemain; editing by Philippa Fletcher)
