French President Emmanuel Macron on Wednesday accused urban middle class drug users of fuelling a narcotics-driven crime wave that has caused alarm nationwide, and a wave of murders in the second city of Marseille.

The killing last week in Marseille of the younger brother of anti-drug activist Amine Kessaci amplified concern over the soaring death toll. Authorities say the murder was linked to the campaigner's activism.

Kessaci, 22, vowed to continue denouncing the scourge of narcotics crime even after the killing of his younger sibling, writing in an op-ed in the Le Monde daily: "No, I won't be quiet."

Macron told a cabinet meeting "it is sometimes bourgeois people in city centres who finance drug traffickers," according to government spokeswoman Maud Bregeon said, stressing she was qu

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