News > World > Europe Marseille: Europe's most dangerous place to be young [Pg-28-marseille-afp.jpg] [Pg-28-marseille-afp.jpg] Away from its glamorous tourist centre, 15 men have died this year as -- Email To understand Marseille catch a bus – bus number 30 from the Bougainville metro station. The route starts at the northern terminus of the metro system, five kilometres from the city centre. It winds -- The bus passes through the poorest districts of the poorest city in France. Almost 40 per cent of people who live here are below the poverty line, compared to 26 per cent in Marseille as a whole and 15 per cent nationally. In the richer, mostly white, areas south of the city centre, the risk of dying before the age of 65 is 23 per cent below the national average. In north Marseille, it is 30 per cent higher than the French average. If you are a teenage boy or young man from northern Marseille, you risk dying long before the age of 65. Fifteen young men, mostly from the city's northern districts, have been shot dead this year as part of a -- In fact, there have been almost as many killings of young men in the first nine months of 2012 as in the whole of last year. Proportionally, Marseille (population 800,000), now has almost as many drug-related murders as New York (population 8,000,000). Eyeing the issues, the French government has announced emergency action this month to stop the -- Earlier this month, Samia Ghali, the mayor of the 15th and 16th arrondissements of Marseille, which embrace most of the poor northern districts, detonated a verbal bombshell. She said that the drug-related violence in northern Marseille had become so extreme that only the army could defeat it. She called on the government to deploy troops to confiscate the cheap automatic weapons flowing in from the Balkans and -- conducted with impunity. Ms Ghali, a child of northern Marseilles like Zinedine Zidane and Eric Cantona, admits that her proposal was mostly a "cry of alarm". "I was born and grew up here. I know what I'm talking about," she said. "I can -- the massacre." Ms Ghali, a Socialist, berates the attitude of some politicians and commentators – including the centre-right mayor of Marseille Jean-Claude Gaudin - who dismiss the murders as "règlements de compte" ("tit-for-tat killings" or "a turf war"). "By using that kind of language, you're saying that these murders – and murder is the right word – are separate from polite society or the law," she said. "You are saying, 'let them kill each other'." Back in the busy, friendly centre of Marseille – a different planet from Bougainville and La Savine – I met Laurent Gaudon, a lawyer who has represented families of the victims. He also disputes the phrase "turf war". "Often -- last year a boy of 17 was shot because he had been disrespectful to another young man. The killer wanted to prove that he was tough enough to be in a drug gang." Marseille has always had gangland killings, Mr Gaudon said. "This is the city of the French Connection. All the organised crime of the Mediterranean basin passes through here – -- local and national politicians of Left and Right. It was, all the same, hugely successful. Within days, the government had drawn up an action plan to "rescue Marseille". The interior minister, Manuel Valls, and justice minister, Christiane Taubira, were in the city last week to set up a new "priority security zone" in the northern districts. There are -- Mr Ayrault this week appointed another Prefect with the Herculean brief to dissolve local political jealousies and create a single, political and economic agglomeration, reconnecting Marseille with its rich satellite towns. He might begin by trying to dissolve the boundary between first and third worlds which begins at Bougainville metro -- Drug war in numbers 26: Percentage of people in Marseille who live below the poverty line, against 15 per cent nationally. -- city's drug wars. 300: The number of Kalashnikovs reportedly intercepted in Marseille this year. News