In her flat in a decrepit 18th-century building in the centre of Marseille, Samira ran her hand over a crack in her kitchen wall. “I worry my building is slowly caving in,” she said. “I’m scared we’ll end up buried alive,” reports The Guardian.
The stone staircase up to other damp apartments was sloping and wonky and residents felt that it moved as they used it. A crack in one wall was so deep, daylight seeped through. A burly teenager on an upper floor had been regularly told by his father not to step on parts of the increasingly uneven kitchen floor, which he feared was subsiding. Samira’s bathroom ceiling was sodden with mould and damp. After dark, rats made so much noise in her kitchen that it sounded as if she was being burgled.
“I have to take sleeping pills at night, otherwise I’m too scared to close my eyes for fear the ceiling will cave in,” she said.
Marseille, France’s second city, is facing its biggest crisis in decades as city-centre residents fear historical buildings that have turned to slums could crumble and fall. Grief and fury spread through the heart of the city after eight people were killed in November when two buildings collapsed near the picturesque old port.
Citizens’ protests groups are asking how a city that has spent millions in the past decade on high-profile waterfront museum projects and attracting cruise-ship visitors could abandon residents and architecture to fatal neglect. In 2015, a government report warned that 40,000 dilapidated and dangerous homes were a health or security risk to 100,000 people, many in the city centre, but campaigners say little was done.
Hundreds of families in Marseille have been evacuated from flats feared to be unsafe in recent months. Around 1,000 people – many on low incomes – are still sleeping in hotels, waiting to be rehoused.
Samira’s decrepit building was one of those recently evacuated – fire officers told her to grab her medication and a bag of her children’s clothes and flee. Residents spent several weeks in a hotel before the private landlord and a city hall expert declared the building safe to move back to. But families fear renovations weren’t enough. “I don’t feel safe,” said Yassin, 30. “When I hear a neighbour walking around upstairs, I pray my ceiling won’t give way.”
The crisis has highlighted Marseille’s unique makeup. With a population of around 850,000, it is smaller than the likes of Barcelona and Naples, and its diverse society is seen as symbol of modern France. But following industrial decline, a high number of its residents still live in poverty.
Most other cities in western Europe have pushed their poorest to the outskirts, but Marseille still has diverse, low-income, working-class districts in its centre. The city’s rich residents and bourgeoisie have historically retreated to the coast, the outskirts or the villages beyond.
And yet Marseille’s city centre has little social housing and a lot of squalid properties run by slum landlords, while property speculation is increasing.
Housing campaigners have warned of a deliberate policy of neglect. They fear local authorities could use the crisis of crumbling buildings to evacuate and resettle poorer residents in rundown areas of northern Marseille, clearing the city centre for high-profit property deals.
“Marseille has the last remaining working-class city centre in France, maybe even in Europe,” said Carole Lenoble, a local architect campaigning to preserve the centre’s social mix.