The seedy past of Marseille

Strolling the alleys of Marseille, I feel like I’m walking into a film I’ve lived, but only in my head. The kind of streets where every cracked cobblestone is a whispered secret, every crumbling façade a promise of trouble.

The 1971 movie “French Connection” shaped my view of the city when I first saw it three decades ago. Marseille seemed more like a beast than a city, a living thing lurking in ambush down the unmarked alleys.

I pass La Samaritaine, right near Vieux-Port, where a deal goes down in the beginning of the movie. I climb the narrow stairs toward Rue des Moulins in Le Panier, following the ghost of the movie’s unnamed introduction character. Forty years after the film, it still stirs something in me.

Crumbling street in the old quarters.

I find myself in the tower of Château d’If on the exact spot where the movie characters Charnier and Devereaux once sketched their sinister plans. I breathe the salty air and listen to the slap of waves.

View from Château d’If.

Le Panier, the old quarter, may seem sleepy during daytime. But at night, darkness spills out of doorways and shadows stretch where daylight kept things honest. I walk down streets through packs of people, the air heavy from barbecue meat.

I remember reading an old passage about the streets here, “…where both hearts and noses of sailors have been broken for centuries”. These days, the thing most likely to get broken is your credit-card limit. Time softens edges, but only if you’re lucky.

Night life in the old quarters.

The next morning, I struggle upward along endless stairs in search of Navettes, the crisp floral biscuits of Marseille. Because sometimes, even in a city with a seedy past, you need something sweet to eat.