The fourth in a few days, since the triple shooting that occurred in one night last April which left four dead, including two teenagers, in Marseille. This weekend, the collective of families is organizing a march in the city center, to express its anger against the assassinations linked to drug trafficking in the second city of France. A similar march brought together around a hundred people last weekend. At the same time, a column was published in The Marseillaise. This Tuesday, another column against was published, this time in Mediapart, signed by fifteen collectives and 213 politicians, such as the mayor of Marseille Benoît Payan, but also Fabien Roussel, Olivier Faure and Sandrine Rousseau.
Recently, in a city plagued by turf wars against a background of drug trafficking, something new seems to be happening. The impression that the silence, not to say the leaden screed, which surrounded these assassinations, is no longer appropriate. Where, yesterday, the settling of scores was counted by the media without arousing major reactions locally, in particular among the first concerned, relatives of the victims and other inhabitants of the targeted cities, speeches and symbolic actions have multiplied since this famous shooting.
“It’s getting awful”
“Something is indeed happening in Marseille, confirms Amine Kesaci, president of Consciousness Association who organized the march last weekend. There is a certain frustration. Before, no one dared to speak. There was some fear of reprisals. Drugs were also a taboo issue in the estates, we are not going to hide. But the violence has taken on such a scale in Marseille. Now it can shoot in broad daylight, anywhere, anytime. Recently, a mother was murdered in front of her daughter! It’s getting awful! »
“The insurmountable pain of their loss is intertwined with a furious anger, that of seeing these killings tirelessly repeated in the apathy of all, can we read in the forum published by Mediapart this Tuesday. The year 2023 having reached a degree of mad and blind violence. “Today, mothers who have lost their children are mobilizing,” notes Hassen Hammou, founder of collective too young to die, a pioneer in the field. We also have MPs who come from these neighborhoods, and young association leaders, a new generation who refuse their destiny. Today there is fire, so everyone is waking up. Young people shoot anywhere. It’s very complicated. Methods have changed, people want to leave the neighborhoods. They don’t trust the security there anymore. »
“We need something concrete”
Symbolic initiatives which however present real limits, for these two associative leaders very committed in the field of the fight against the settling of accounts. Already, because the number of participants in these actions remains limited, not to say a minority, on the scale of the second city of France. “No, this mobilization cannot change things until we have created the balance of power for, regrets Amine Kesaci. When we have 200,000 people in the streets during the demonstrations, we can create this balance of power, have a mobilization that can succeed in convincing people to change things. »
“Steps, we must have done hundreds of them, sighs Hassen Hammou. Stands too. At some point, you have to be concrete, and take it to the next level. Now we need a real policy. The head of the association has been carrying out the project of a parliamentary commission of inquiry on the subject for several weeks.
This Monday, at the microphone of France Blue Provence, the LFI deputy for the northern districts Sébastien Delogu announced his intention to request this parliamentary inquiry. Since the beginning of the year, 23 people have died in shootings linked to drug trafficking in Marseille.