‘We are seen as less human’: inside Marseille’s districts abandoned by the police

As questions mount over levels of racial profiling by French police in the wake of the shooting in Nanterre, Marseille serves as a warning of what happens when the police lose control – or abandon – a community.

More broadly, the port is seen as a litmus test for France; if its most multicultural city can foster vast Muslim enclaves viewed with broad suspicion or hostility by the police, then what hope is there elsewhere?

For many, it came as little surprise that the southern port city witnessed some of the fiercest rioting on Friday night when 88 people were arrested, a gun shop looted and police engaged in running battles with what they called “violent groups”.

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