Romans-sur-Isère weeps Nicolas. “Another rugby player”, “as Thomas “. Another “collateral victim” of ultra-violence on the doorstep of nightclubs in the hills of the Drôme and Ardèche regions. But in Valence, behind the shooting that took the life of this 22-year-old boy at the entrance to Seven, a popular nightclub located five kilometers from the Drôme prefecture, nightlife workers are murmuring snatches of another story. Far from the “coup de sang” of a madman firing a 9mm pistol into a crowd after being refused access to the club. A new form of organized racketeering. More radical, more tenacious. More complex, too. And while it was already poisoning the lives of local club owners, it’s now killing off the clientele.

Behind them looms the shadow of a mafia 200 kilometers further south, hungry for new territories. It’s conquering the deal points in Avignon, halfway down the road. And now, the nightlife of the Valence basin. “No one wants to admit it. But we have to face the facts. Marseille’s drug dealers want to…