Special Envoy to Marseilles,
Resurgence of national debate? Semblance of a municipal campaign? Cathartic explaining session? Surely a mixture of all of this. In shirt sleeves, in the humidity of Marseille, Emmanuel Macron does not know where to turn. The 300 inhabitants who took their places inside the Busserine gymnasium, in the northern districts of the Marseille city, have the head of state at hand and intend to take advantage of it. Unsanitary housing, shootings, drug trafficking, education of children, access to employment, … This Monday evening the microphone passes from one hand to the other and the President of the Republic has the worst difficulty in the world to frame the flow arrests. The prefecture has however sorted the guests carefully – association leaders are overrepresented – but here it is Marseille: it fuses. The two large banners of OM “straight to the point” installed by the Élysée to complete the scenography of the debate presaged the tone to come.
“Everyone has made you believe that everything is fine, that everyone is taking care of everything. It’s wrong ! it’s wrong ! It’s not true, ”protests a young woman who managed to invite herself into the gymnasium by calling out to the head of state when he wandered through his neighborhood. Her speech commands the approval of the room, especially when she mentions “the cockroaches and the rats” who “come up to the house”. Not to mention insecurity. “I have to put my daughter in a private Catholic school because it’s safe. I can’t put her in the school where I was little,” she laments.
A mother with her face surrounded by a long beige veil abounds: “How come? We are in France, we see corpses, weapons every day. We’re tired of burying our children! The shooting deaths are legion, like this 63-year-old retiree last April, a collateral victim of clashes between drug traffickers. “23 assassinations since the beginning of the year, 80% related to narcotics”, recalls Emmanuel Macron who promises to “pound, pound, pound” to “bring down the deal points”. He assures that 70 have been dismantled recently. “There’s no light, there’s no elevator, even the doctor doesn’t come anymore. No one’s coming. We don’t know anyone”, laments the resident, however, who is slow to perceive the results of the “Marseille en Grand” plan that the Head of State comes to defend on the spot for three days. “I’m honest with you, you’re going to start to see the results, but you have to keep up this effort,” said the President of the Republic when talking about his sovereign policy while the gymnasium where he works is surrounded by the forces of order. He promises to set up “republican action forces” by the end of the summer to “break” the problems and “have a decisive effect” thanks to additional support from law enforcement, magistrates and educators, in addition to the staff already mobilized.
Many arms are raised to speak. “We are not going to go from a critical point to (being able) to solve all the problems (immediately). It does not exist. But you can’t tell me, when a few centimeters have been made, that nothing has been done,” asks Emmanuel Macron, who recalls that significant resources have been mobilized for Marseille for two years (15 billion euros, of which 5 have been contributed by the state). This does not prevent the tone from rising.
“We will all stay calm,” asks Emmanuel Macron. “This anger must be positive, it must be converted into projects. Your anger is justified but it is not enough. We have to fix the root causes so now we’re moving on, ”he said before listing new announcements for the school. With college from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. and kindergarten accessible from the age of two in priority education districts, he intends to fight against “school inequality”. A resident points to the “discrimination” that prevents the youngest from finding a job, the Head of State commits to more “testing” and wants fewer “Kebab internships”. He also begins to dream of seeing “the best architects in the world who come to our neighborhoods” to bring “beauty” to it. “There are plenty of subjects, we could spend the night there,” said Emmanuel Macron to close the first day of a three-day trip to the city. While promising, already, to return. This is not to deny his activists whose posters plastered across the city present him as “the president of all Marseillais”.
