2023-06-26 23:05:00
“Mr. President, I am facing you but I am no longer there. I am stuffed, I am dead inside”, begins Anita, mother of a child victim of the drug war in Marseille.
“And thank you for no longer saying settling of accounts but assassination. My son was assassinated,” she insists.
Facing her, Emmanuel Macron listens, takes notes, his face serious.
In this small room in the city of Campanules, where residents managed to scare away dealers at the start of the year, a handful of women recount the loss of a loved one in this violence linked to drug trafficking which has already claimed 23 died this year in the second city of France.
Anita has her son’s name hanging around her neck, in big gold capital letters. Karima Meziene she lost a brother. For Laetitia Linon, he is a nephew, barely 14 years old.
“I’m going to tell you about the tears of blood we cry. My mother has Alzheimer’s and every day I have to tell her that her son was murdered. My brother was murdered in 2016. I saw an examining magistrate in 2022. And I am a lawyer. There was a dismissal. I never want to be opposed to the secrecy of the instruction again. We have the right to the truth”, launches Karima Meziene, member of the collective families, created in 2020 in Marseille.
Nobody, neither the Keeper of the Seals Eric Dupond-Moretti, nor the Minister of the Interior Gérald Darmanin, nor the mayor of Marseille Benoît Payan, dares to touch the lavish trays of oriental pastries arranged on low tables.
Then Laetitia Linon recounts the death of her nephew Rayanne, 14, in August 2021, city of Marronniers.
“Then we were threatened by the network that killed Rayanne”. She squeezes her fan very tightly: “Two years later I no longer believe in it, unfortunately it will happen again. I received videos again last night from little ones aged 10 and 17, + Aunty it shot when we were playing at the foot+”.
“Wake”
“And on the internet, the right to the image does not exist, the images of the assassinations turn in a loop”, engages another. “We have to wake up, it has to stop”.
These women speak frankly and with great dignity of the rats in their neighborhoods “which look like cats”, of the lack of means to finalize the legal investigations, of their lack of recognition of the status of victims, and of their need for help. , for example by being rehoused after an assassination.
The tone sometimes rises between them. “You speak that” of a neighborhood reproaches one. “You have lost someone, you can’t talk,” says another.
Emmanuel Macron tries to calm down: “What you have experienced and what you are going through justifies the reactions. It is legitimate”. Just before, he had tried to clear up a misunderstanding with Rayanne’s aunt who had criticized him for his speech in Marseille a few days after the death of his nephew.
He was talking about “12-year-old kids who should be in school” rather than a deal point, not Rayanne in particular, he swears.
“On what has been said about justice, these are words of reason, we are going to put special means in Marseille so that you are better supported”, he assures.
“I promise you that in the northern districts you will see the difference”, continues Emmanuel Macron, who came to Marseille to launch Act II of his “Marseille en grand” plan.
“Never, never have we put as many” additional resources as in Marseille, with more than 300 more police officers, recruitments at the courthouse, at the judicial police. And he argues the harassment strategy of deal points, which have fallen by 40% in two years according to the police.
“We don’t see the difference, is that normal?” Anita replies.
26/06/2023 23:02:34 – Marseille (AFP) – © 2023 AFP
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