Emmanuel Macron showed off his virility this week with the release of two photos in which he is seen giving a punchbag his best shots. Is Vladimir Putin scared? More to the point, will the drug cartels of Marseille be frightened into submission by the Elysee Palace’s very own Rocky?

The day before the publication of the photos, Macron visited Marseille, his thirteenth visit to the Mediterranean city in seven years. As usual, the president swung by to talk tough about the deadly violence that has gripped the city for years. Last year, 49 people were shot dead in tit-for-tat killings among rival drug gangs, and 123 were wounded. ‘In Marseille and other cities in France, we have launched an unprecedented operation to put a stop to drug trafficking and ensure republican order,’ declared Macron on Twitter.

What if the drug lords take control of Marseille and other towns and cities across France?

At the start of the week nearly 100 people were detained in a series of raids. The government has also promised that 4,000 police officers will be deployed in the coming weeks as Macron looks to restore order to Marseille before the summer Olympics. The city will be the base for the sailing events when the Games start in late July.

For the people of Marseille, particularly those who live on the northern housing estates where the cartels are based, there is little hope that anything will change. This is not the first government to declare war on the drug gangs. In September 2012, the newly-appointed prime minister, Jean-Marc Ayrault, and 15 of his ministers visited the city and proclaimed that the ‘inertia’ that had characterised previous governments was over. More police would be deployed, declared Ayrault, because it was in the ‘national interest’ to eradicate the scourge of the gangs.

Twelve years later, what was a Marseille problem has now become a national problem. The cartels have expanded into other cities: from Nimes, just along the coast, to Dijon and as far north as Rennes, where earlier this month terrified residents cowered in their apartments as rival drug dealers fought an hour long battle with AK47 assault rifles.

In Paris, the cartels made their presence felt last May when a man was executed in the affluent 8th Arrondissement. But the contract killer made a mistake, shooting dead an estate agent who, unlike the intended victim, was not linked to the Marseille drug scene.

In total five people lost their lives last year to cartel killers because they had the misfortune to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. In the southern city of Nimes a ten-year-old boy was shot dead, and in Marseille a student revising for her exams was struck by a stray bullet in her bedroom.

If Macron’s latest crackdown fails, what then for Marseille? Earlier this month, one of the city’s top magistrates warned the Senate that the Republic was losing control of Marseille, what he referred to as ‘Narcoville’.

The critics of Macron’s plan, called ‘Operation Clear Space XXL’, say it is superficial and short-term; what is needed, certainly according to the public, is far tougher prison sentences. That was the most popular answer to a recent poll asking what the most effective strategy against the gangs would be. Second was more police on the streets and third was to send in the army.

Prison was the topic of conversation on a popular TV discussion programme the day after Macron’s visit to Marseille. The host pointed to the success of El Salvador’s president, Nayib Bukele, in ridding the streets of the vicious gangs which once ruled the country through fear.

When Bukele came to power in 2019 it was with a promise to eradicate the gangs. He’s been true to his word. Murder rates have fallen from 38 per 100,000 to 7.8, which is under half the Latin American average. Gangsters now languish in prison, an estimated 75,000, which works out at one in 45 adults. Many have not been charged with a crime – they have simply been removed from the streets.

A policeman walks in front of a drugs ‘menu’ in Marseille (Credit: Getty images)

Bukele’s methods have proved a hit with the Salvadorian public, 87 per cent of whom re-elected him in February. He is less popular with the western liberal media. The New York Times, Guardian and Le Monde have all run critical articles of his crime fighting strategy. One of the panellists on the French TV programme reacted in horror to the suggestion that France could learn something from El Salvador. ‘I don’t want inhumane prisons in my country,’ declared George Fenech, a former magistrate and MP in the centre-right Republicans.

But what if the killings – and the corruption, which is reportedly spreading in scale across France and taking in police officers and civil servants – continue? What if the drug lords take control of Marseille and other towns and cities across France? This isn’t a flight of fancy. The ‘Mexicanisation’ of France has been worrying commentators for a while. On Sunday night, a mob of fifty hoodlums in northern Paris attacked a police station with Molotov cocktails and improvised mortars.

The day after Macron’s visit, life returned to normal in Marseille and the drug dealers were back on the streets. One woman told the local paper of her despair, and her disgust at Macron’s ‘masquerade’. ‘The president came to show off before the European elections, not to change the lives of the residents,’ she said. The editor of La Provence has since been suspended by its Macron-supporting owner, prompting a walkout from staff at the newspaper.

Marseille is a city in tumult and while Macron might be able to influence what the newspaper writes, he’s less successful at bringing the drug cartels to heel.