The battle for Marseille: How to win back streets as drug trade soars?
One of your browser extensions seems to be blocking the video player from loading. To watch this content, you may need to disable it on this site.
One month after the stunning assassination of the brother of an anti-gangland activist, French President Emmanuel Macron is returning to the Mediterranean port for an update on the government's plan to win back the streets and offer hope to fed-up citizens of France's second-largest city. The whole reason Amine Kessaci became an activist was the earlier murder of his older half-brother, who got mixed up with the wrong crowd.
The unsolved murder of 20-year-old Mehdi Kessaci – who was training to become a police officer – bears the hallmarks of a calling card from the narcos. The lore of Marseille as a hub for traffickers extends back centuries, long before Hollywood glamourised the French Connection heroine smugglers in the 1970s. But it's just one of many European ports of entry for cannabis and cocaine.
Cocaine will further flood the market, now that the United States is blowing suspected smuggler boats that head its way out of the water. The drug is cheaper and increasingly in demand. There lies an essential question: is the onus on cartels or consumers? We ask what today's supply and demand of narcotics says about us and our societies in 2025.
Produced by François Picard, Rebecca Gnignati, Juliette Laffont, Ilayda Habip, Charles Wente.
