Marseille

One of the benefits of holidaying during a riot is you feel remarkably safe. Ruffians have no interest in you while they can be having fun at the expense of a much more exciting foe, the police. And besides, there are Lacoste stores to be raided: they have no time for your wallet.

The other major benefit is you can get a table anywhere. We had the best seat in France last week: the first-floor balcony of La Caravelle, an old-school bar overlooking Marseille’s historic port and the perfect vantage point for taking in the fine art of French rioting.

The choreography unfolded in fits and starts. The police vans snaked around the water’s edge in military formation. Out filed the riot cops, their tessellated body armour making them look like mutant woodlice. We spotted a group of skinny masked boys. A wash of smoke. A flash of red. A scurrying of woodlice. Then silence. We returned to our pastis. Twenty minutes later, another gust of boys, smoke and cops.

The next day, Chez Etienne, one of the great pizza restaurants and usually crammed, seated us within seconds. Post-coffee, we decided to track down the rioters. From the British newspapers you’d have thought the Marseille disturbances were impossible to avoid. In fact, they were hard to spot. We did eventually find a thicket of riot cops gathering in the alleyways. For the first time I sensed unease. The lovely old gun shop opposite Maison Empereur that we’d been admiring earlier in the day had been broken into. A few antique rifles had been pinched, it transpired, but were quickly recovered.

Afterwards, I headed back into the centre of town. There was a festive spirit in the air. Sweet old ladies in hijabs handed out masks. Girls lurked excitedly in doorways. And then through a thin haze of gas, there was a sudden eruption. A hoodied huddle had blowtorched open the metal grille of another store. With a crack, a cheer and a smash, the bodies surged in. Then suddenly a cry went up. The crowd jolted. A scramble began. Everyone ran.

The following morning, the rocky beaches were a little emptier, especially of the usual posse of teenage boys who, day in, day out, throw themselves into the sea. But the town was abuzz with carpenters, glazers and welders, patching up the commercial zone. I thought about Bernard Mandeville’s The Fable of the Bees (1714). The philosophical satire argued that we have vice, not virtue, to thank for making the economy whir. Might there even be a spike in France’s GDP in the coming months?

Most bars had shut up shop by the evening, as the police and kids played hide and seek around the Cours Julien. But we found one open in Noailles with revellers spilling out on to the street. A small army of masked protestors, possibly regrouping, walked through the drunk crowds to a hero’s welcome. Everyone clapped, whistled and cheered – though no one had the faintest idea who they were, what they had done or what they were about to do.

To come to France and be annoyed at the presence of riots would be like visiting Italy and being furious at the amount of pasta on the menus. That said, even within the rebellious traditions of the French, Marseille and its people are startlingly animated. Eruptions are as authentic a part of the city’s soul as the bouillabaisse. The Parisians I met were petrified by the riots. But Parisians have always treated Marseille as a terrifying, alien civilisation.

Last week’s commotion wasn’t even close to the most spirited eruption I’ve encountered in my many years of visiting Marseille. That prize goes to the evening Algeria won the Africa Cup against Senegal in 2019, when the night thundered down on us. The city’s population moved as one through the streets, boys dangling off every lamppost and street sign. As a fellow Marseille devotee texted me the other day: ‘They riot in celebration and celebrate in riot.’