until i read this article, i had no idea that the french riots mostly skipped marseille.
the interesting thing is that marseille seems to have the reputation of being a dangerous city. at least it used to. i remember visiting a friend in paris in the late 1990s (when i lived in chicago) and she described marseille as "the chicago of france." by that she meant it was filled with mobsters and criminals. and this is from a person who recently moved from marseille. she wasn't just repeating a stereotype she heard somewhere. she actually knew the city quite well. i guess the relative calm in marseille flies in the face of its reputation in france.
it also undercuts the conservative claim that the french riots were some kind of muslim fundamentalist revolt. muslims have a huge presence in marseille. they probably are a larger proportion of the city than anywhere else in france. i've heard some french people refer to the port city as where algeria starts. if the riots were caused by islam, marseille would have been hit the hardest. maybe instead the rest of france should look to marseille's example.
