MARSEILLE, France — Violence at a drug trafficking hotspot in the social housing complex next to Orange’s headquarters in Marseille forced the telecoms giant to lock its forest-green gates and order its thousands of employees to work from home.

The disruption to such a recognizable company — one that gives its name to the city’s iconic football venue — became a fresh symbol of how drug trafficking and insecurity are reshaping politics ahead of municipal elections.

In a recent poll, security ranked among voters’ top concerns, forcing candidates across the spectrum to pitch competing responses to the drug trade.

“The number one theme is security,” center-right candidate Martine Vassal told POLITICO. “In the field, what I hear most often are people who tell me that they no longer travel in the heart of the city for that reason.”

French political parties are watching the contest closely for clues about the broader battles building toward the 2027 presidential race.

In many ways, Marseille is a microcosm of France as a whole, reflecting the country’s wider demographics and its biggest political battles.

The city is diverse. Multicultural and low-income neighborhoods that tend to support the hard left abut conservative suburbs that have swung to the far right in recent years. As in much of France, support for the political center in Marseille is wobbling. 

The left-wing incumbent Benoît Payan remains a slight favorite in the March contest, but Franck Allisio, the candidate for the far-right National Rally, is just behind, with both men polling at around 30 percent.

The issues at play strike at the heart of Marseille’s identity: its notorious drug trade, entrenched poverty and failure to seize on the competitive advantages of a young, sun-drenched city strategically perched on the Mediterranean.

Whichever candidate can articulate a platform that speaks to Marseille’s local realities while addressing anxieties shared across France will be well positioned to take city hall — and to provide their party with a potential blueprint for the 2027 presidential campaign. 

Second city 

Marseille has always had something of a little-brother complex with Paris, a resentment that goes beyond the football rivalry of Paris Saint-Germain and Olympique de Marseille.

Many in the city regard the French capital as a distant power center that tries to impose its own solutions on Marseille without sufficiently consulting local experts.  

“Paris treats Marseille almost like a colony,” said Allisio. “A place you visit, make promises to — without any guarantee the money will ever be spent.” 

When it comes to drug trafficking and security, leaders across the political spectrum agree that Paris is prescribing medicine that treats the symptoms of the crisis, not the cause. 

Violence associated with the drug trade was thrust back in the spotlight in November with the killing of 20-year-old Mehdi Kessaci. Authorities are investigating the crime as an act of intimidation. Mehdi’s brother Amine Kessaci is one of the city’s most prominent anti-trafficking campaigners, rising to prominence after their half-brother — who was involved in the trade — was killed several years earlier. 

President Emmanuel Macron, Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez and Justice Minister Gérald Darmanin all visited Marseille in the wake of Kessaci’s killing, outlining a tough-on-crime agenda to stop the violence and flow of drugs. 

Locals stress that law-and-order investments must be matched with funding for public services. Unless authorities improve the sluggish economy that has encouraged jobless youths to turn to the drug trade, the problem will continue. 

“Repression alone is not efficient,” said Kaouther Ben Mohamed, a former social worker turned activist. “If that was the case, the drug trade wouldn’t have flourished like it did.”

Housing is another issue, with many impoverished residents living in dangerous, dilapidated buildings.

“We live in a shit city,” said Mahboubi Tir, a tall, broad-shouldered young man with a rugby player’s physique. “We’re not safe here.”  

Tir spent a month in a coma and several more in a hospital last April after he was assaulted during a parking dispute. His face was still swollen and distorted when he spoke to POLITICO in December about how the incident reshaped his relationship with the city he grew up in. 

“I almost died, and I was angry at the city,” said Tir, who suffers from memory loss and has only a vague recollection of what led to the assault, as he sipped coffee in the backroom office of a tiny, left-leaning grassroots political party where he volunteers, Citizen Ambition. 

Security problem

To what extent Marseille’s activist groups can bring about change in a city whose struggles have lasted for decades remains to be seen, but the four leading candidates for mayor share a similar diagnosis.

They all believe the lurid crime stories making national headlines are a byproduct of a lack of jobs and neglected public services — and that the French state’s responses miss the mark. Rather than relying on harsher punishments as a deterrent, they argue the state should prioritize local policing and public investment.

When Payan announced his candidacy for reelection, he pledged free meals for 15,000 students to get them back in school and to double the number of local cops as part of a push for more community policing.

Allisio’s platform puts the emphasis on security-related spending: increased video surveillance, more vehicles for local police and the creation of “specialized units to combat burglary and public disorder.”

Vassal — the center-right backed by the conservative Les Républicains and parties aligned with Macron — has similarly put forward a proposal to arm fare enforcers in public transport.

Both Allisio and Vassal are calling for unspecified spending cuts while preserving basic services provided at the local level like schools, public transportation and parks and recreation.

Vassal, who is polling third, said she would make public transportation free for residents younger 26 to travel across the spread-out city. She accuses the current administration of having delivered an insufficient number of building permits, slowing the development of new housing and office buildings and thus the revitalization of Marseille’s most embattled areas — a trend she pledged to reverse.

Both Vassal and Allisio are advocating for less local taxes on property to boost small businesses and create new jobs. Allisio has also put forward a proposal to make parking for less 30 minutes free to facilitate deliveries and quick stops to buy products.

The outlier — at least when it comes to public safety — is Sébastien Delogu, a disciple of three-time hard-left presidential candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon. Though Delogu is polling fourth at 14 percent, he can’t be counted out, given that Mélenchon won Marseille in the first round of the last two presidential elections.

Though Delogu acknowledges that crime is a problem, he doesn’t want to spend more money on policing. He instead proposes putting money that other candidates want to spend on security toward poverty reduction, housing supply and the local public health sector.

Whoever wins, however, will have to grapple with an uncomfortable truth. Aside from local police responsible for public tranquility and health, policing and criminal justice matters are largely managed at the national level.

The solution to Marseille’s problems will depend, to no small extent, on the outcome of what happens next year in Paris.