A massive shootout linked to drug trafficking has seriously wounded a teenager and four others in western France, the interior minister, Bruno Retailleau, said, in the latest such gunfight to injure children.

The shootout erupted overnight in front of a restaurant in Poitiers, Retailleau told BFMTV/RMC radio on Friday. “What started as a shooting at a restaurant ended up in a fight between rival gangs that involved several hundred people,” he said.

The 15-year-old boy was between life and death, he said.

The minister warned that France was at a “tipping point” when it came to drug trafficking violence, saying that he was planning to travel later in the day to Rennes, where a five-year-old child was also critically ill after being shot on Saturday in another drug trafficking fire exchange.