“This gentleman, he was 63 years old. He hadn’t asked anyone. I am not saying that the death of young people who are part of the networks is justified. These are equally gruesome deaths. I’m just saying that this gentleman, in early retirement, he hadn’t asked anyone for anything. He wanted to join his friends to play cards and he found himself in an incredible situation. It’s not normal to be faced with two bullets. This gentleman Fadella is talking about on the microphone died in a shooting just a week ago. It was only a few meters from here, in the city of Busserine, in the 14th arrondissement of Marseille. A man unknown to the police, possible collateral victim of a settling of scores, hit by several bullets in the chest, near a snack bar. He became that evening the seventeenth victim in violence linked to drug trafficking in the Bouches-du-Rhône since the beginning of the year.
One death too many. In front of the Busserine social center, on the eve of a white march organized this Wednesday in Marseille for the victims of the settling of accounts, residents of the surrounding cities shout their feeling of injustice, tinged with fear, on the occasion of a press conference initiated by a collective, the Busserine Watch Group. Below, in a parking lot, a bouquet of flowers hung on a post pays tribute to another young man, found dead, burned in a burned-out car in the middle of March.
“In fact, we have more life”
“I am totally revolted by everything we are going through, claims Fadella. We just aspire to live, because we pay our taxes, like everyone else. But we don’t have the same life as everyone else. And it’s getting worse and worse. Violence, now, is everyday. We are afraid to let our children go to college. Residents no longer send their children to school the day after a shooting, for five or six days, because they are afraid to go down the stairs. It is latent. We know that there will be other tragedies. There, we had this shootout. Every night since then, we hear shots. After school, at 4:30 p.m. now, there are a million cars in front of schools and colleges because parents, even if they live close by, they come to pick up their children. How do we do ? In fact, we have more life. »
“At the social center, the parents have already warned that in the evening, they will not let the children come to school support”, regrets Amel. “We are tired, us parents, abounds Henriette. We are worse than at war. It’s the same thing every day. Parents, we fight for our children. There is no one who wants to bring their child into the world and see it dead. There, it is serious. The problem is getting worse and worse. It’s babies. They wake up in the morning, what they see is pools of blood. In the stairwells, it’s weapons. Children, they see this every day. How do you want them to get away with it? »
“It’s a cry for help”
“No, we are not accomplices, claims Amel. No, the traffic and the network do not make us live. No, this situation is not the counterpart of a choice that the inhabitants of the district would have made to let traffic proliferate in order to take advantage of it. Yes, we hope to live in peace and quiet, on an equal footing with other citizens of this city and this country, enjoying the same rights and with the same equal treatment. We refuse to be assimilated to this violence of which we are victims and not accomplices. »
“And it’s not just at La Busserine, recalls Fadella. All the northern districts are suffering. And Mr. Darmanin, instead of sending us the CRS8, he has to come and sit where we sit. He has to feel that when he sees a car coming at full speed, he’s scared. When he sees a motorcycle, he turns around. Let him drop the cameras, and let them come see us. “And to launch:” We would like to be heard in the highest spheres of the State. It is a call for help. Help ! Today, we come to bear witness to the horror. On a daily basis, we experience tragedies. Remember the horror, the fear of seeing blood everywhere. Recall the fear of family members, friends, and even people you don’t know, neighbors. And that’s not at all the subject in Paris. They are totally disconnected from it. And we suffer from that. “I’ve lived there for 40 years and I’ve never seen that,” sighs Amel. We are abandoned by everyone. »
“We asked the police at night”
According to these residents, insecurity is linked to an insufficient police presence in the cities of Marseille. “We asked for the police at night, recalls Fadella. The police during the day is very good, because they check our papers and vehicles. Personally, I got checked twice. They see that my insurance is up to date, that we are in order with the technical control. Alright. But the problem is that, in the neighborhood, it doesn’t fit, or it fits half an hour. »
“We hope that this extremely violent situation will not completely disillusion the inhabitants, worries Anne-Marie. It was said earlier, while having fun, that today there were more elected officials and journalists than inhabitants. But we must take into consideration the fear and also the difficulty in still believing that actions are possible. »
In 2018, La Busserine had already made headlines in the press, after a shooting immortalized in a chilling video. “I remember in 2018, launches Fadella. You were here, as numerous, with the same good will. But nothing has changed. And it’s been going on for ten years. »