Mexicanization

“We must do what is necessary to prevent Mexicanization… The country is on the path to Mexicanization… Marseille is Mexicanized… If we don't act, we run the real risk of total Mexicanization.”

What could political scientists, security experts, and French and European leaders be referring to? Our privileged climate, the beauty of our coastline, our traditions and crafts?

Unfortunately not. Sit down. Because Mexico, today, is a symbol of something else. It has become a verb, an adjective, a warning. A painful and terrifying word.

The term "Mexicanization" was first used by Pope Francis in 2015 during a meeting with an Argentine congressman, to whom he expressed his hope that Argentina still has time to avoid Mexicanization.

Since then, the reference has gained notoriety in the international press, and particularly in French political statements since late 2024 and early 2025, as a warning against the rise in drug-related violence and the latent threat of a failed state dominated by cartels.

Mexicanizing was popularized by figures such as Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau and other politicians—such as Didier Migaud and Étienne Blanc—who used it to describe the risk of France succumbing to "Mexican"-type violence: territorial, unpunished, structural.

Media outlets such as RFI, France 24, TF1 Info, Le Point, and CNews used the term extensively in articles, panel discussions, and analyses on insecurity, drug trafficking, and organized crime.

Relevant examples of the official use of the term

Bruno Retailleau (Minister of the Interior, Public Security and Government), speaking in the French Senate on November 1, 2024, following an attack on a five-year-old boy in Rennes linked to drug trafficking, commented: “Either there is a general mobilization, or there will be a Mexicanization of the country.” He has also referred to the “Mexicanization of the Hexagon,” as a warning against the spread of cartel-like criminal structures.

Étienne Blanc (LR Senator, co-rapporteur of the parliamentary committee on drug trafficking):

He introduced the term in an official report before Retailleau amplified it in public discourse.

Didier Migaud (Minister of Justice): He used the term in the context of the same commission, stating: "Mexicanisation, narco-rabble, narco-enclaves… These neologisms have made their appearance…"

A word turned into a symbol

The term "Mexicanization" has become widely used in France—and increasingly in Europe—to describe a scenario of extreme insecurity: daylight killings, systematic extortion, territorial control, complicity of public forces, structural impunity, and a gradual dissolution of the rule of law.

There is even talk of the Mexicanization of the political class when it is suggested that some leaders are beginning to resemble their Mexican "colleagues": ineptocrats, kleptocrats, mediocre, grotesquely ill-prepared, and often complicit—or an integral part—of the very cartels they should be fighting.

Mexican viewers of these debates—in shock—discover what this word reveals about the international perception of Mexico: the image of a helpless population, suffering an unbearable situation but, paradoxically, tolerating and even perpetuating it by choosing those who cause or allow it.

As painful as it may be, there's no honest way to combat this perception without acknowledging the facts. The world perceives Mexico as a failed state, marked by violence, extortion, corruption, and ineptitude. A democracy weakened by constant attacks from within: what many now, bluntly, call a narco-government.

This vision doesn't emerge solely from the news, or from television series, or even from statements by Pope Francis or the US president about the narco-influenced nature of our government. It emerges, above all, from the raw, bloody, irrefutable facts we all know.

What we seek to avoid at all costs

The reference to Mexico in recent years—as a country turned into a war zone, lawless, stateless, governed by narco-politicians and kleptocrats—is harsh, yes, but not gratuitous. It's the warning that France and other nations are issuing to themselves.

We would all like Mexico's image to be different. One that inspires respect and hope, not fear and warning. But international perception is anchored in numbers, facts, pain, and visible decline.

Although our politicians deny it, although official rhetoric disguises it, this Mexican tragedy is known and feared. And today—paradoxically—it has become a symbol of what must be avoided at all costs: Mexicanization.