I have already written about the French region of
Grand Est as one of the places in France that made a good impression on me, based partly on my own experiences. I generally do not like writing about places I do not know personally, but this time I decided to take a closer look at another part of France — a city that is discussed exceptionally often in connection with violence, drugs, and organized crime:
Marseille. I also considered how certain policies could further exacerbate these problems.
Marseille and Strasbourg, for instance, show how dramatically different cities of the same country can be, and even how different parts of a single French city can be from one another.
Marseille: A Once-Thriving City and Its Decline
Marseille is a city of contrasts. Once a prosperous Mediterranean metropolis with one of Europe’s most important ports, extensive trade, industry, and a seaside resort, it is now often associated with poverty, drug trafficking, gangs, and violence.
In some categories of violent crime, Marseille genuinely reaches the very top of French statistics, and even among the highest levels recorded in the European Union. In its report on the drug trade, the French Senate stated that in 2023 Marseille ranked first among the French cities examined in the number of murders and attempted murders committed within criminal circles.
However, Marseille does not appear to be a city where every part of its urban space is equally dangerous or socially troubled.
In the south of Marseille are beaches, the coastline, villa districts, parks, and areas that resemble a classic Mediterranean metropolis. In the north, by contrast, some of the city’s poorest neighborhoods, social problems, drug markets, and violence are concentrated.
This difference is not accidental.
During the second half of the 20th century, Marseille underwent a major economic transformation. The decline of parts of traditional industry, changes in the port economy, the end of the colonial era, and subsequent migration patterns significantly transformed the city’s social and spatial structure.
The Marseille itself states that the second half of the 20th century saw the erosion of industry and port activity, with a significant share of port operations shifting toward Fos-sur-Mer and Étang de Berre—it’s shifting approximately 50 km from Marseille.
Large residential complexes emerged on the outskirts of Marseille, concentrating disadvantaged or newly arrived populations with lower incomes. Over time, this created a very pronounced difference between some of the southern and northern parts of the city.
According to INSEE (Institut national de la statistique et des études économiques), Marseille had a total population of 877,215 in 2022. Of these, 141,554 people were classified as immigrants, meaning people born abroad regardless of their current citizenship. This represented 16.1% of the population. There were 104,141 foreign nationals, or 11.9%. Overall, this means that roughly one third of the city’s population has a foreign-born or foreign-national background when these categories are considered together.
The figure of 16.1% also does not represent the share of everyone with an immigrant background. For example, it does not include people born in France whose parents were born abroad. The actual number of residents with an immigrant background is therefore higher.
Violence Connected to the Criminal Environment
Then comes the statistic that helps explain why Marseille is so frequently mentioned in discussions about security.
In Marseille, 165 murders and attempted murders involving people from criminal circles were recorded in 2023, compared with 76 cases in 2022. This represented a year-on-year increase of 117%. (Xavier Raufer)
With a population of 877,215, 165 cases would correspond to approximately 18.8 cases per 100,000 inhabitants. Purely mathematically, that is an average of approximately one such case every 2.2 days.
It is important, however, to emphasize what this statistic actually means. These are not all murders and attempted murders committed in Marseille. They concern a specific category of violence involving perpetrators or people connected to criminal circles in Marseille.
The connection between violence and the drug market is even more striking.
The French Cour des comptes states that 47 murders connected to drug trafficking were recorded in Marseille in 2023. This represented more than nine out of ten murders recorded in the city. At the same time, 118 people were injured, compared with 43 in 2022.
Cour des comptes states said that the violence is also spreading geographically. Whereas in 2022 at least one so-called “narcocide” occurred in six of Marseille’s sixteen municipal districts, by 2023 this had risen to eleven.
Marseille is therefore not simply a story of crime. It is also a story of social segregation, poverty, and the spatial concentration of problems.
Poverty and the Concentration of Problems
“Life is parallel to Hell, but I must maintain.” — from song N.Y. State of Mind by Nas
According to INSEE, the poverty rate in Marseille’s priority neighborhoods, known as QPVs (Quartier prioritaire de la politique de la ville), was approximately 52% in 2021. This means that roughly one in two residents of these neighborhoods lived below the poverty line.
Some of the city’s most significant social problems are concentrated precisely in these areas.
There is another interesting mechanism at work here. INSEE data show that within the Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur region, people are moving away from priority neighborhoods, particularly in the Aix-Marseille-Provence area. Those leaving these areas have, on average, a higher standard of living than those moving into them.
This creates a fairly important problem.
If people with higher living standards are disproportionately leaving a poor neighborhood while people with the lowest incomes, people living in poverty, and people without income remain, the departure of residents does not necessarily solve the problem. On the contrary, it can lead to an even greater concentration of poverty.
And this is where Marseille becomes an interesting example. A example because this situation can be to see also at another problematic parts of France.
There are neighborhoods in Marseille where large numbers of people with low incomes, people living in poverty, and people without income live. A significant proportion of the population has an immigrant background or was born in another country, while many of their descendants were born directly in France. Immigrant background itself, however, is obviously not an explanation for crime. What matters above all is the environment in which poverty, unemployment, limited economic opportunities, social segregation, and the presence of an organized drug market combine.
What happens if the economic conditions of such a neighborhood deteriorate further, or if it becomes increasingly marginalized?
The intuitive answer might be: people will leave and the problem will therefore be solved. But Marseille itself shows why this does not necessarily work.
The French Ministry of the Interior states that in 2024, registered drug-related crime in QPVs was higher than in their immediate surroundings. For drug use, there were 10.1 suspects per 1,000 inhabitants compared with 5.0 outside QPVs. The difference was even greater for drug trafficking: 3.2 compared with 0.8 per 1,000 inhabitants. These figures concern QPVs across France, not Marseille alone, but they demonstrate a significant spatial concentration of this type of crime.
This may point to a mechanism in which individual social problems reinforce one another.
Poverty limits people’s ability to improve their living conditions. Those who have sufficient resources and opportunities may be able to leave a troubled neighborhood. Those who do not have such options remain. If a drug market and organized criminal groups are also present in the same area, crime may become further concentrated there.
As the history of Marseille itself shows, people throughout history have generally not simply left when conditions deteriorated.
The departure of part of the population therefore does not necessarily mean that a neighborhood will recover. It may instead mean that those with the greatest ability to change their circumstances are the ones who leave, while a higher concentration of people with low or no income and limited opportunities remains behind.
And this is precisely what makes Marseille such an interesting example of this mechanism. Parts of its industry once disappeared, but the people remained. Later, those with better opportunities began to leave. Some of the city’s poorest areas were therefore gradually left with a high concentration of people who had the fewest opportunities to change their circumstances.
Marseille is therefore not simply a story of crime. It is also a story of how economic decline, social segregation, poverty, the departure of part of the population, and the development of an illegal economy can become interconnected within the same urban space.
