Gangland killings in broad daylight on the streets of Marseille, and the apparent inability of authorities to do anything about it, have handed France's National Front a dream springboard from which to launch its far-right agenda, reports Reuters.
France's second largest city, notorious in the 1960s as a link in the "French Connection" which funnelled heroin from Turkey to Europe and the United States, has been hit this year by a spate of drug-related murders.
"The gangrene of crime is spreading through France," warned National Front (FN) leader Marine Le Pen, who chose the Mediterranean port city as the venue for the party's annual meeting this month.
"Marseille is not the exception - it's the shape of things to come," she told the party faithful.
Designated by the European Union as a 2013 "European Capital of Culture", Marseille is actually seeing something of a renaissance as its refurbished docks and a museum of Mediterranean civilisation pull in ever more tourists.
The city of 850,000 has become a hub for the cruise sector, and expects to handle one million passengers this year, up from just over 120,000 fifteen years ago. Tax incentives have encouraged start-ups and unemployment has nearly halved in two decades to slightly above the national average of 10.9 percent.
But it is Marseille's crime troubles that continue to grab national headlines. While violent crime measured per head of the population is not significantly more widespread than in Paris, the use of Kalashnikovs and other war arms smuggled out of the Balkans and other former conflict zones has shocked many.
There have already been 15 gangland killings in and around Marseille this year, around the same level as last year.
President François Hollande's ruling Socialists and the main conservative opposition UMP party - which runs Marseille city hall - blame each other for the failure to halt the violence, a squabbling that plays into the hands of the National Front.
The anti-immigrant, anti-EU party is confident it can use next March's municipal elections to embed its officials in town halls across France with the message that France's main parties do not address the concerns of ordinary French people.
In the 1960s and 1970s, Marseille's narcotics business was largely run by well-organised Corsican gangs. Since then, much of the activity has transferred to hashish and cocaine and is now in the hands of smaller, more disperse groups of youths in the poor, immigrant-heavy northern suburbs.
The FN's proposals to combat crime - including kicking out immigrant delinquents and hiring more police - resonate with some in the city. Others argue it ignores signs of buoyancy in the local economy and the fact most types of crime are falling.
"They kill each other to fight over (drug) territories," said Jean-Luc Chauvin, head of the local employers' federation.
"It's sad but it doesn't affect the average citizen or businesses."
Many residents say Marseille's problems stem from the split between the affluent palm tree-lined southern neighbourhoods by the sea and the concrete-jungle northern districts where most immigrants of North African origin live - a stark reminder of France's wider struggle to integrate such communities.
Mohammed Bensaada, a volunteer youth worker in the northern suburb of Busserine, gave the example of an engineering graduate from the area who remains unemployed a year after getting out of school - which Bensaada suspects is due to employers shying away from candidates with immigrant family names or a home address in the "wrong" part of town.
The anecdote reflects a view among many in Marseille that authorities are ignoring underlying social inequalities they believe drive young people to seek a life in crime.
"Police raids only treat the symptom - it's like saying you've got cancer
but I'll treat you for your cough," said Bensaada. "But it won't cure you."
Read more of this report from Reuters.
See also: Marseille's lurid tit-for-tat killings – the real story