#publisher World news RSS feed France RSS feed Europe RSS feed Drugs trade RSS feed Travel RSS feed Marseille RSS feed Dispatch RSS feed Turn autoplay off Turn autoplay on Please activate cookies in order to turn autoplay off * Jump to content [s] * Jump to comments [c] * Jump to site navigation [0] * Jump to search [4] * Terms and conditions [8] Edition: UK US AU * Your activity * Email subscriptions * Account details * Linked services Profile Mobile About us * About us, * Contact us * Press office * Guardian Print Centre * Guardian readers' editor * Observer readers' editor * Terms of service * Privacy policy * Advertising guide * Digital archive * Digital edition * Guardian Weekly * Buy Guardian and Observer photos Today's paper * Main section * Comment * Sport * New Review * Magazine * Observer Tech Monthly * Observer Food Monthly Subscribe The Guardian home The Observer home * News * Sport * Comment * Culture * Business * Money * Life & style * Travel * Environment * Tech * TV * Video * Dating * Offers * Jobs * News * World news * France Series: Dispatch Previous | Next | Index Marseille's battle between culture and crime The city is spending millions on its stint as Europe's culture capital in 2013 â but it is also fighting murderous gang crime * Share * Tweet this * * [pin_it_button.png] * * Email * Kim Willsher * * The Observer, Sunday 27 November 2011 Jump to comments (…) Fish market in Marseille The fish market in the Old Port of Marseille Photograph: Alamy In the old port of Massalia, where the Greeks arrived 2,600 years ago, the yachts, fishing boats and pleasure craft bob in the dappled water, as nut-brown fishermen sell the morning catch. A few streets away, the chic restaurants are packed and the luxury goods shops are doing brisk business in monogrammed handbags and gold watches. In the neighbouring quartier, prostitutes and drug dealers duck and dive to avoid the police patrols. These are the two faces of modern Marseille: the cosmopolitan, cultured pearl of the Mediterranean on the one hand; Rio-sur-Mer, as certain papers have nicknamed it, a lawless badland full of gangsters who could hold their own in the most dangerous Brazilian favela, on the other. With the city preparing for its year in the international limelight as European culture capital in 2013, there is a battle for Marseille's soul that will determine its reputation and future. No one in Marseille denies it has a huge problem with crime. Drugs, gambling and prostitution â and, more recently, corruption â have dominated the city's mob scene for four decades. But like many here, Yves Moraine, a lawyer and president of the ruling centre-right UMP group on the council, is sick of hearing the city likened to crime-riddled Rio, the Camorra stronghold of Naples, or even Chicago, America's murder capital. "It is a caricature, and unfair stigmatisation," he says, his voice rising. "If I said everything was rosy in Marseille I would be lying. But insisting everything is black, that is a lie too. Yes, there is poverty and delinquency and corruption, but to say things are black, black, black is utterly false." Moraine believes the culture year is a chance for Marseille to put its troubled past behind it and drag itself into the 21st century. Foreigners and native French always muddled along in a city that was home to writers, poets and artists, including Auguste Renoir, Paul Cézanne and Raoul Dufy and, more recently, footballer Zinedine Zidane. The dark underside of this melting pot has always been, as it is now, a higher than average level of violence and crime, often rooted in widespread poverty and the seediness depicted in the 1970s Gene Hackman film The French Connection II. However, the bubbling undercurrent turned into a terrifying tsunami at the beginning of the year with what one police officer described as an outbreak of "ultra violence" leading to 20 drug-related assassinations in nine months. David Oliver Reverdy, of the Marseille branch of the Alliance police union, blames it on territorial disputes between drug barons and a proliferation of weapons, namely Kalashnikovs, the weapon of choice for the city's criminal class. He says the killers and their victims were mostly young dealers, often minors, who "were afraid of nothing" and showed "an astonishing lack of consideration for human life or scruples about their atrocious acts". The violence of the attacks created an atmosphere of fear in a city that, unlike Paris, has not shunted its immigrant underclass out into grim high-rise suburbs, but still boasts run-down estates where youth unemployment is reported to be as high as 40%, more than 20% live under the poverty line, and jobless youngsters have turned to drugs and crime. "Disputes that would once have been settled with a punch are now being resolved with a Kalashnikov," said Reverdy. Since September, when a new police chief arrived â the third in three years â Reverdy says the situation has calmed. The killings have almost stopped and street crime has fallen to a third of its previous rate â thanks, he says, to more police officers patrolling the city. Just down from Marseille's magnificent St Charles station, built in 1848, Sami, as he calls himself, is with a group of youngsters kicking their heels in the shadow of decrepit stone buildings hung with drying washing. He says that his parents are Moroccan and he was born in France. He claims to be 15 but looks younger. Shouldn't he be at school? He shrugs. "Why?" he says before loping off. Said, a youth worker, says young Marseillais find it more lucrative to peddle drugs than go to classes. "A lot of the youngsters we're working with live in poverty and haven't been to school for years. We try to help them, but it's hard to motivate them to work hard at their education when they can earn more money dealing and there's no jobs for them afterwards." The city authorities are investing â¬800m for the capital of culture year, building new museums and extensions to existing museums and galleries, plus an extra â¬90m on imaginative events. Jean-François Chougnet, director of the 2013 culture year organisers, said he hoped it would help Marseille to metamorphose. But Benoît Gilles, a reporter with La Marseillaise, a daily newspaper founded in 1943 by members of the communist resistance, said 2013 risked further excluding the already excluded. "Organising a free street event or a spectacle in a rundown area is not going to make people feel included. The situation in Marseille is complicated. It cannot be denied that delinquency and crime are high here, but building museums and organising cultural events is not going to be a magic wand that is waved and suddenly everything is fine." Back in the Old Port, Fanny Rose Arnay, 72, was enjoying the warm November day. A familiar figure around the local fish market, she can often be found in sequins and a feather boa, singing to passers-by and tourists. She summed up the paradox that is Marseille. "It's a strange place," she said. "On the one hand it's undisciplined and very dangerous, so dangerous that sometimes I am afraid to go out. On the other, it's colourful, interesting and extraordinary. Marseille...it's like nowhere else in the world." ⢠The following correction was published in the Observer on 4 December 2011: "A battle for the ancient port's divided soul" (Dispatch, Marseille) described Chicago as "the murder capital of America". According to FBI statistics from 2010, New Orleans tops the infamous league with a rate of 49.9 per 100,000. St Louis is second at 40.5. Chicago is down the list at 15.2. Daily Email close Sign up for the Guardian Today Our editors' picks for the day's top news and commentary delivered to your inbox each morning. Sign up for the daily email * Print this Print this * Share * Contact us Send to a friend Close this popup Sender's name ____________________ Recipient's email address ____________________ Send Your IP address will be logged Share Close this popup Short link for this page: http://gu.com/p/33k5v * StumbleUpon * reddit * Tumblr * Digg * LinkedIn * Google Bookmarks * del.icio.us * livejournal * Facebook * Twitter Contact us Close this popup * Report errors or inaccuracies: reader@observer.co.uk * Letters for publication should be sent to: letters@observer.co.uk * If you need help using the site: userhelp@theguardian.com * Call the main Guardian and Observer switchboard: +44 (0)20 3353 2000 * + Advertising guide + License/buy our content Article history About this article Close this popup Marseille's battle between culture and crime This article appeared on p2 of the Main section section of the Observer on Sunday 27 November 2011. It was published on the Guardian website at 00.04 GMT on Sunday 27 November 2011. It was last modified at 18.31 BST on Friday 28 June 2013. World news * France · * Europe · * Drugs trade Travel * Marseille Series * Dispatch More from Dispatch on World news * France · * Europe · * Drugs trade Travel * Marseille More news * Share * Tweet this * * * Email Comments Click here to join the discussion. We can't load the discussion on theguardian.com because you don't have JavaScript enabled. Today's best video * Kennedy riding in Dallas motorcade JFK: former secret service agent relives assassination Former secret service agent Clint Hill gives his account of the day John F Kennedy died as the US marks 50 years since Kennedy's assassination * Doctor Who 50th anniversary title sequences Doctor Who theme re-recorded New recording marks the series' 50th anniversary * Bayern Munich's Franck Ribbery Bayern Munich recreate Borussia Dortmund stunt Players recreate trick on board team bus * Ricky Gervais, Miss Piggy and Kermit the Frog Muppets Most Wanted The Muppets return with a new adventure. Watch the trailer GuardianWitness * Rescuers work in a flooded street in the small town of Uras, Sardinia Sardinia storms: share your experiences If you have been affected by the recent storms and flooding in Sardinia â share your videos, photos and experiences * raft of sea otters Tech Monthly readers' photography project: networks Whether it's a web of neurons or the building of a new train line, we'd like to see your photos on the theme of 'networks' * Father and daughter together Gypsies, Roma & Travellers: introduce us to your family Help us find out what life is really like for Gypsy, Roma and Traveller families around the world by telling us about your own family * Send us your assignment ideas Do you have an idea for an assignment you think should run on GuardianWitness? Let us know. * The NSA files trailblock image Live: Follow NSA-related developments as controversy over leaks continues to make headlines On World news * Most viewed * Latest Last 24 hours 1. [John-Kerry-at-Iran-talks--006.jpg] 1. Iran seals nuclear deal with west in return for sanctions relief 2. 2. Vatican displays Saint Peter's bones for the first time 3. 3. China imposes airspace restrictions over Japan-controlled Senkaku islands 4. 4. Yemeni wedding guests accidentally shot while dancing to Gangnam Style 5. 5. Uganda: no country for gay men 6. More most viewed Last 24 hours 1. [Anti-government-protest-i-003.jpg] 1. Ukrainian protesters flood Kiev after president pulls out of EU deal 2. 2. Timeline of Iran's nuclear programme 3. 3. French horse riders take tax protest on to streets of Paris 4. 4. Bahrain: two former Guantánamo inmates arrested 5. 5. Iran and US could cause shift in tectonic plates of Middle East alliances 6. All today's stories Guardian Bookshop This week's bestsellers 1. Eat - The Little Book of Fast Food 1. Eat - The Little Book of Fast Food by Nigel Slater £17.50 2. 2. Tales from the Secret Footballer £7.99 3. 3. For Who the Bell Tolls by David Marsh £8.99 4. 4. Stage Blood by Michael Blakemore £15.49 5. 5. Autobiography by Morrisey £7.19 Search the Guardian bookshop ____________________ (Submit) Search Sponsored feature guardian jobs Find the latest jobs in your sector: * Arts & heritage * Charities * Education * Environment * Government * Graduate * Health * Marketing & PR * Media * Sales * Senior executive * Social care Browse all jobs ____________________ Search Video Journalist New York | Competitive GUARDIAN NEWS AND MEDIA Today in pictures * sports peronality 2012 BBC Sports Personality of the Year â in pictures Bradley Wiggins capped his remarkable sporting year by taking home the big prize at the ceremony in London * Martin Parr's M Video Christmas party photograph Dinner, dusk and dancing Russians: my best winter shot A glass of wine with a rough sleeper, Santa in trunks, a thousand partying Muscovites ⦠in a My Best Shot special, top photographers pick the image that sums up winter for them * Kimon, a long-tailed monkey grooms a kitten, whom, she treats as her baby, Bintan Island, Indonesia Monkey adopts kitten â in pictures Kimon, an eight-year-old pet female long-tailed monkey, treats a kitten as her baby in Bintan Island, Indonesia More from Dispatch A weekly in-depth report from Observer correspondents across the world * Latest: 9 Nov 2013: St Vincent and the Grenadines prepares to confront dark history of slavery in court * Next: 4 Dec 2011: In Klosters, three weeks before Christmas, only one thing is missing â snow * Previous: 13 Nov 2011: Dances and dalliances: legendary Jerusalem bar opens once more Dispatch index * License/buy our content | * Privacy policy | * Terms & conditions | * Advertising guide | * Accessibility | * A-Z index | * Inside the Guardian blog | * About us | * Work for us | * Join our dating site today * © 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. * Share * Tweet this * * Quantcast