The Head of State will spend three days in the Marseille city, from Monday to Wednesday, to present Act II of his “Marseille in a big way” plan. Since his arrival at the Elysée, Emmanuel Macron has shown a strong interest in the second city of France.
Visit to the Marseille police headquarters, visit to a primary school, exchanges with Marseille residents… Emmanuel Macron is expected on Monday June 26 in the Marseille city. The Head of State must unveil the second part of the “Marseille en grand” plan, which he presented on the spot in September 2021. Objective: to straighten out the city, plagued by multiple problems of insecurity and unsanitary housing and public infrastructure. Un billion euros for transport, 254 million euros for schools and 169 million euros for the North and Timone hospitals… In total, the State must inject five billion euros to improve the daily lives of inhabitants of the second city of France.
As if to better support his interest in Marseille, the Head of State has planned to spend three full days there. “Such a long official visit by the President of the Republic to the territories is unprecedented“, insists the Elysée. “Marseille has never been treated well by the French state. The government is making enormous efforts for Marseille“rejoices Renaud Muselier, Renaissance president of the regional council of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur region.
“It was OM that made him dream”
Emmanuel Macron has a long-standing attachment to Marseille. A craze which is explained by his love for Olympique de Marseille, judges the deputy of Bouches-du-Rhône and friend of the presidential couple Sabrina Agresti-Roubache: “It was OM that made him dream when he was a teenager“. From this passion for the club would have flowed a particular interest for the city that he “knows very well, including some things that only locals can know”assures the deputy.
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The former Minister of the Economy thus chose the Marseille city to hold his very first campaign meeting, in 2016, the day after the announcement of his candidacy. He had returned to his “city of hearts”as he calls it, in the home stretch of the 2017 presidential election, and even appropriated the local dialect, ensuring “fear degun” (“person”), from the Pharo Palace.
It was also there that he had spent his first holidays as president. The child from Amiens had even taken the opportunity to train at the Commanderie with his favorite football team. Since 2017, Emmanuel Macron has chained a dozen trips to Marseille. To better understand local issues, the tenant of the Elysée regularly exchanges with influential personalities in the city. “He is a man who knows how to take the temperature and who understands quickly”boasts Renaud Muselier.
“Between Macron and Marseille, it’s storytelling”
“I love Marseille very much, the second largest city in France, one of the poorest and most vibrant“, chanted Emmanuel Macron in the magazine Zadig in the summer of 2021. For its opponents, this declaration of love is cleverly calculated for image reasons. “Emmanuel Macron is in a logic of communication shots, in particular after the pension reform that he wants to forget”denounces Hendrik Davi, deputy La France insoumise of Bouches-du-Rhône.
“Between Macron and Marseille, it’s storytelling”abounds on the other side of the political spectrum, the deputy Rassemblement national des Bouches-du-Rhône, Franck Allisio. “I think the only authentic thing in all of this is his love for OM. The president has fun with the image of Marseille. (…) He wants to play the successful multiculturalism card”adds the former Marseille city councilor.
The opposition nevertheless agrees on the observation drawn up by the Head of State: Marseille needs significant investment. In terms of security, of course, after the death of 23 people since the beginning of the year, in settling scores. But also in the field of housing, when the collapse of two buildings on rue d’Aubagne in 2018 put a spotlight on the problems of insalubrity.
“Macron acts because the city has great fragilities”
These problems are not new. Everywhere in Marseille, the political class welcomes with open arms the money put on the table by the government, while waiting to judge on documents. “He comes to talk about transport, education and other non-sovereign themes, it’s true that it’s surprising for a president”, notes Christophe Madrolle, regional councilor sitting in the majority. “But I prefer a head of state who gives resources to Marseille, rather than a head of state who is content with signs of affection, without money”.
A local elected official who prefers to remain anonymous also praises the presidential intervention, according to him the only way to redress the city whose “the administration is in a catastrophic state after the years [passées sous le mandat de l’ancien maire de droite] Jean-Claude Gaudin”.
“We cannot leave the second city of France in such difficulty. Immanuel Macron acts because the city has great fragilities”, defends the Renaissance MP for Bouches-du-Rhône Anne-Laurence Petel. The critical situation of the Marseille city would therefore justify the intervention of the top of the State. “The President of the Republic ensures permanent monitoring, on a daily basis, of the ‘Marseille en grand’ plan”insists the Elysée.
A local “laboratory” for macronism
This plan by Emmanuel Macron feeds the trials in verticality. Sign of this centralized power, a local elected official received at the Elysée at the end of June is amused to have spotted, on a desk, “a file 30 cm high about Marseille, with the writing of Emmanuel Macron, and next to it a small file devoted to decentralization.”
A regional adviser, however, assures “to have been consulted, like other elected representatives of the majority, even if in the end, the arbitration is done by Emmanuel Macron”. Sabrina Agresti-Roubache also boasts a “perfect consultation”, in particular with the socialist mayor of Marseille, Benoît Payan. For his detractors, however, the president would not have worked enough with elected officials and local actors to develop his plan. “The opposition was not concerted at all, it was done in haste”regrets Hendrik Davi.
“It is not up to the president to intervene, like a monarch, by bypassing local actors. This demonstrates a solitary and authoritarian vision of power. We have no desire to have Zorro in the city!”
Hendrik Davi, LFI deputy for Bouches-du-Rhôneat franceinfo
For the political scientist and sociologist at the CNRS Vincent Geisser, this interest of Emmanuel Macron for Marseille betrays an attraction for the challenge. Emmanuel Macron has “this myth of the fallow land where everything is yet to be done. The city becomes seductive by its problems“, observes the expert. Approaching it as a “political entrepreneur“, the Head of State could try to end his five-year term in style. “He thought he could change the destiny of France, ran into opposition and wants to make up for what he couldn’t do nationally in a more realistic territory in terms of actions.”
At the Elysée, we prefer to highlight the possible fallout from this plan in the rest of France. “The President of the Republic is making Marseille a laboratory of what public policies can do to change the lives of French people. Some announcements that fall within the Marseille sphere may concern the national territory more broadly”assumes the presidency.
A “relative indifference” of the Marseillais for Macron
The city also remains an electoral terrain to conquer, while the Marseillais placed Jean-Luc Mélenchon in the lead during the first round of the presidential elections of 2017 and 2022, and the Renaissance party is struggling to establish itself, both at the level of the city than in the region. “There is a relative indifferencenotes Vincent Geisser, Emmanuel Macron is not a subject of discussion in the cafes of OM fans.“However, it is not for lack of trying to play the “Marseillitude” card. At the start of the Covid crisis, the Head of State did not hesitate to visit the already very controversial Professor Didier Raoult , while the enthusiasm of the Marseillais for the infectious disease specialist of the IHU was at its height.
This low enthusiasm of the Marseillais vis-à-vis the President of the Republic is explained by a lack of spontaneity, adds Vincent Geisser. “His meeting between the two rounds [en 2022] was very closed, it was not a popular meetingrecalls the sociologist, there is a too scripted side in its communication, the Marseillais do not identify“.
“The people of Marseille prefer tribunes of the people like Jean-Luc Mélenchon or Bernard Tapie. Macron is not populist enough to be popular.”
Vincent Geisser, political scientist and sociologist at the CNRSat franceinfo
Emmanuel Macron still received some praise from the socialist mayor Benoît Payan, who greeted his “exceptional work in Marseille”. Emmanuel Macron’s Marseille stays would also not be devoid of municipal ulterior motives. After having registered in 2021 the rallying of the ex-LR and president of the region Renaud Muselier, Emmanuel Macron can also count on the support of his former Minister of the Interior Christophe Castaner, president of the large maritime port of the city, and of the former director of Brigitte Macron’s cabinet, Pierre-Olivier Costa, who became president of the Mucem.
It remains to be seen whether Emmanuel Macron’s strategy in Marseille will bear fruit. “I see Macron as a lion tamer: either he will be eaten, or he will manage to tame the city and he will have his recognition“, summarizes the regional councilor Christophe Madrolle. His arrival from June 26 to 28 will be a good way to take the temperature. If Sabrina Agresti-Roubache ensures that the Marseillais “stop talking about pension reform” and expects “a very warm welcome“however, several unions have called for a rally to protest against his policy.