French Navy intercepts boat with cocaine in Caribbean

PARIS, Feb 5 - The French Navy has intercepted a boat that was carrying cocaine and handed it over to the Barbadian authorities, France's Armed Forces Minister said on Thursday, as the United States and other countries step up their fight against drug trafficking.

Catherine Vautrin wrote on X that around 678 kilogrammes of cocaine had been seized.

France, which has overseas territories in the Caribbean and Latin American regions, has been pushing a more aggressive policy in recent months on drug trafficking.

The French Monitoring Center for Drugs and Drug Addiction published a report in December saying that cocaine had overtaken cannabis as the leading illegal drug in France.

Gang-related drug crime is on the rise in France, and during a visit to Colombia, the world's largest cocaine producer, France's Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot launched a multi-pronged plan to fight an explosion of drug trafficking in Latin America, the Caribbean and increasingly Europe.

Paris has been pushing for a European Union sanctions regime to tackle the issue. REUTERS