DDPF And The Arson Wave

What would it take to rattle an entire corrections system, not through a spectacular jailbreak, but through synchronized harassment designed to frighten staff, overload responders, and force policy concessions, all without breaching a single secure door?

In mid April 2025, France found out. Over multiple nights, vehicles burned outside prison perimeters, automatic fire struck a main gate, and the homes and parking lots of correctional officers turned into staging grounds for intimidation.

Was it ideology, drug money, or both wearing the same mask, a three letter tag spray painted at scene after scene, DDPF? The stakes were immediate for line staff, and strategic for a government already attempting to choke off gang command and control from behind the walls. This post catalogues the attacks, sketches the actors, and extracts the operational lessons prisons actually used to blunt the effect.

The Attacks

The opening incident hit the National School of Prison Administration in Agen on the night of Sunday, April 13, where seven to eight vehicles belonging to trainee officers were torched, a municipal communiqué confirming an “incendie volontaire” just before 23:00.

Within forty eight hours, at least nine facilities and affiliated sites were targeted, a pattern of arson against staff vehicles and buildings, and one instance of rifle fire against a prison entrance. According to Reuters, “the entrance [at Toulon La Farlède] was shot at with an AK 47 automatic rifle,” while cars were set ablaze outside Villepinte, Nanterre, Aix Luynes, and Valence.

Tarascon saw three staff vehicles burned in the parking lot in the early hours of April 16, while investigators logged the same three letters at multiple scenes. Le Monde captured the rhythm and geographic spread, “about 10 prisons…car fires and, in one case, heavy weapons fire.”

The shots at Toulon punched roughly fifteen impacts into the main gate, a union circular for FO Justice underscoring that no staff were physically injured, although the psychological effect was real.

By April 15, the wave included attacks on staff residences and stairwells, and a training school for officers, prompting the national anti terrorism prosecutor to take charge due to the “concerted character” of actions “committed on multiple points,” with DGSI supporting.

The Actors

A Telegram channel calling itself French Prisoners’ Rights, DDPF, surfaced on April 14, one day before the wave, pushing anti prison rhetoric, threatening staff, and mirroring the graffiti left on scene. As Reuters put it, “The letters ‘DDPF’ were tagged on many of the attack sites.”

Some police sources floated a far left thread in the first 48 hours, but the government consistently pointed toward drug trafficking networks reacting to new constraints on incarcerated bosses. France’s president promised those behind the campaign would be found and punished, as anti terrorism prosecutors coordinated the opening phase.

Then the case narrowed. On May 2, anti terrorism prosecutors announced they were handing the file to organized crime prosecutors, finding “no radical violent ideology, no foreign interference,” and characterizing the actions as “within the framework of major organized crime.” Investigators identified the creator of the DDPF channel as a convicted inmate with alleged links to Marseille’s DZ Mafia, who used the channel to outsource tasks to low level recruits, including minors.

Le Monde likewise reported 21 suspects charged by May 3, the far left hypothesis set aside, and the investigation “narrowing in on drug traffickers,” with DZ Mafia named as the driving network.

Tactics

The pattern emphasized dispersed, low cost actions that force maximum defensive posture with minimal attacker risk.

According to AP, the campaign featured “gunfire and arson,” with an automatic weapon fired at Toulon and vehicles set ablaze at Villepinte, Nanterre, Aix en Provence, and Valence, while investigators tied tempo to an intensified anti drug push.

Operationally, the attackers leaned on three levers:

1. Targeting staff identity and mobility, not hard perimeters. Burning personal vehicles in staff parking lots, tagging officer housing blocks, and striking the reception gate at standoff range created fear pressure without complex breach problems.

2. Branding for fog and recruitment. The DDPF tag and channel gave a ready made “cause” for young executors to rally around, masking garden variety narco pressure as prisoner rights activism. Reuters later described how the channel “tender[ed] out the work to small time criminals,” a familiar gang outsourcing model.

3. Synchronized nights, shifting locales. Three consecutive nights of arson and shots, followed by copycat or linked incidents near staff residences, forced broad perimeter alerting while keeping any single scene short, often under a few minutes.

Notably, the only rifle fire reported hit a hardened gate, not a living unit, a choice that amplified spectacle while limiting the chance of homicide charges and immediate shoot back. The FO Justice note on “15 impacts” and no injuries at Toulon supports that reading.

Conclusion

April’s attacks were never about breaching cells, they were about bending people. A few rifles, a stack of jerrycans, a throwaway Telegram brand, all pointed at staff identity and political will. The hard perimeter held, coordination tightened, arrests followed, yet the soft edges remain where the next campaign will go, staff parking, residences, commute routes, training schools. Treat those zones as mission terrain, keep attribution honest and fast, surge visible protection when it matters, and make victims whole quickly. That is how you blunt a cheap intimidation play, and deny organized crime the return it is hunting.