#publisher World news RSS feed France RSS feed Europe RSS feed Drugs trade RSS feed Travel RSS feed Marseille RSS feed Dispatch RSS feed Turn autoplay off -- Previous | Next | Index Marseille's battle between culture and crime The city is spending millions on its stint as Europe's culture capital -- Jump to comments (…) Fish market in Marseille The fish market in the Old Port of Marseille Photograph: Alamy In the old port of Massalia, where the Greeks arrived 2,600 years ago, -- watches. In the neighbouring quartier, prostitutes and drug dealers duck and dive to avoid the police patrols. These are the two faces of modern Marseille: the cosmopolitan, cultured pearl of the Mediterranean on the one hand; Rio-sur-Mer, as certain papers have nicknamed it, a lawless badland full of gangsters who could hold their own in the most -- With the city preparing for its year in the international limelight as European culture capital in 2013, there is a battle for Marseille's soul that will determine its reputation and future. No one in Marseille denies it has a huge problem with crime. Drugs, gambling and prostitution – and, more recently, corruption – have dominated the -- "It is a caricature, and unfair stigmatisation," he says, his voice rising. "If I said everything was rosy in Marseille I would be lying. But insisting everything is black, that is a lie too. Yes, there is poverty and delinquency and corruption, but to say things are black, black, black is utterly false." Moraine believes the culture year is a chance for Marseille to put its troubled past behind it and drag itself into the 21st century. Foreigners and native French always muddled along in a city that was home to writers, poets and artists, including -- to 20 drug-related assassinations in nine months. David Oliver Reverdy, of the Marseille branch of the Alliance police union, blames it on territorial disputes between drug barons and a proliferation of weapons, namely Kalashnikovs, the weapon of choice for -- says, to more police officers patrolling the city. Just down from Marseille's magnificent St Charles station, built in 1848, Sami, as he calls himself, is with a group of youngsters kicking their heels in the shadow of decrepit stone buildings hung with drying -- school? He shrugs. "Why?" he says before loping off. Said, a youth worker, says young Marseillais find it more lucrative to peddle drugs than go to classes. "A lot of the youngsters we're working with live in poverty and haven't been to school for years. We try to -- Jean-François Chougnet, director of the 2013 culture year organisers, said he hoped it would help Marseille to metamorphose. But Benoît Gilles, a reporter with La Marseillaise, a daily newspaper founded in 1943 by members of the communist resistance, said 2013 risked further excluding the already excluded. "Organising a free street event or a spectacle in a rundown area is not going to make people feel included. The situation in Marseille is complicated. It cannot be denied that delinquency and crime are high here, but building museums and organising cultural events is not going to be a magic wand that is -- tourists. She summed up the paradox that is Marseille. "It's a strange place," she said. "On the one hand it's undisciplined and very dangerous, so dangerous that sometimes I am afraid to go out. On the other, it's colourful, interesting and extraordinary. Marseille...it's like nowhere else in the world." • The following correction was published in the Observer on 4 December 2011: "A battle for the ancient port's divided soul" (Dispatch, Marseille) described Chicago as "the murder capital of America". According to FBI statistics from 2010, New Orleans tops the infamous league with a rate -- Close this popup Marseille's battle between culture and crime This article appeared on p2 of the Main section section of the Observer on Sunday 27 November 2011. It was published on the Guardian website at -- Travel * Marseille Series -- Travel * Marseille More news