More CCTV on way after new shooting

AFTER a second gangland shooting in 24 hours in Marseille, Interior Minister Claude Guéant has announced that an extra 1,750 surveillance cameras are to be installed across the city.

He was speaking as police opened a new investigation after the body of a 26-year-old man was found riddled with gunshots in a seafront car park in the 8th arrondissement. The man was known to police for drug trafficking.

Hours earlier the body of Farid Tir, another gang member, was found in similar circumstances in the street outside his home in the 3rd arrondissement.

Both had been ambushed and blasted several times with Kalashnikovs and hunting rifles.

Guéant was speaking at the opening of a new Centre de Supervision Urbaine in Marseille which, he said, was the first stage in a project to have 1,800 cameras across the city.

He said gang feuds based on drugs were not new but there was "a new generation of criminals, younger than in the past".

The camera surveillance was "an exceptional tool" which would allow police to react quicker and give them "better control", said mayor Jean-Claude Gaudin.

This had been started with 53 cameras in the very centre of town, he said. There would be 360 by the beginning of 2013 - when Marseille will be European Culture Capital - and the installations would be completed by the end of 2014.

He said the cameras would be the "eyes of the city" and added that Marseille had recruited 100 municipal police.