Marseille is facing its biggest crisis in decades as many of its historic buildings-turned-slums are collapsing, with often tragic results

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.”

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.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest An unhealthy and dangerous apartment in rue des Petites Marie. The residents, after being evicted following a peril order, were forced to return to their apartments. Photograph: Théo Giacometti/Hans Lucas/The Guardian

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.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest A street in Noailles. Across the district, facades are collapsing and cracking, and doors are closed by chains that prevent access for residents. Photograph: Théo Giacometti/Hans Lucas/The Guardian

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.

“But there’s a strong real-estate pressure. There was a luxury hotel being built 100 metres from the buildings that collapsed in November. With that real-estate pressure comes a lack of will to build social housing. This crisis must not be used as an excuse to accelerate moves to push poorer people out of the centre. More social housing must be built.”

After the two buildings collapsed, on rue d’Aubagne in the Noailles district near Marseille’s picturesque old port on 5 November, it took days of searching through the rubble to find the victims. They included a mother from the Comores who dropped off her son at school that morning but never collected him, a painter, and residents from Tunisia and Algeria who had been living in the bustling, central area known for its food market.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Maël, a young engineer whose home was destroyed by the town hall services to secure the neighbourhood after the 5 November collapse. Photograph: Théo Giacometti/Hans Lucas/The Guardian

Tenants had warned for weeks that the walls were moving and that cracks had appeared. Less than three weeks earlier, an expert had deemed the first floor of one building unsafe and the building was evacuated, but the residents were told it was safe to go back.

Anissa Harbaoui, 30, who runs an after-school club, knew Simona, an Italian economics graduate who died in the collapse. “She used to tell me she worried her building would fall down,” Harbaoui said. “But I always said: ‘That couldn’t happen here, this is the second biggest city in France.’ And now it feels like this city has left people to be killed in their own homes.”

Harbaoui, a member of the 5 November Collective campaigning for housing rights in the wake of the disaster, is now living in a hotel after being evicted from her own unsafe building. “One day I closed my door and part of the ceiling fell down,” she said. She had lived in two other unsafe buildings, where cracks and shifting staircases were commonplace. “I guess in Marseille, you get used to living like that,” she said.

“This has destroyed and devastated our neighbourhood,” said Gaye Félicité of the Ivoire restaurant in Nouailles. “People are sad and afraid,” said Sarr Elhadjé, a tailor on the street of the collapse.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest A building in Noailles. Photograph: Théo Giacometti/Hans Lucas/The Guardian

Angry street protests have targeted Marseille’s right-wing mayor of 24 years, Jean-Claude Gaudin. “The deliberate political choice not to do maintenance on buildings and not to build social housing has brought us to this extreme point of people dying,” said the Socialist Nasséra Benmarnia, a former social worker.

But Gaudin, who said he would not resign, insisted city hall’s approach to housing could not be faulted. “My team and I have an ambitious plan to renovate old and unfit housing,” he said after the building collapse.

Trust in politicians has plummeted after investigative journalists in Marseille revealed that some politicians were themselves renting out squalid and dangerous flats at high prices.

“This could be a turning point, people are now realising how serious the housing crisis is,” said Patrick Lacoste of A City Centre for All, a Marseille campaign group.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Anissa Harbaoui. Photograph: Théo Giacometti/Hans Lucas/The Guardian

“The social mix in the centre must be protected,” said Lucas Olivieri, 29, an accountant waiting to move back into his apartment near the site of the collapse. His 94-year-old grandfather, who was living upstairs from him, was once a docker at Marseille’s port.

Corrupt, dangerous and brutal to its poor – but is Marseille the future of France? Read more

Residents and shop-owners live in uncertainty. “I was a cutting a client’s hair when officials came into my shop saying: ‘You’ve got to leave because the building across the road might fall down,’” said Peace Uzoechi, a now working in a temporary shop.

Julia Serres, a mother of six, had been evacuated from a squalid flat that city authorities have since deemed safe to return to. But she feared the stairwell and rundown interior still looked unsafe. She was struggling to pay for a hotel room, afraid to go home. “We’re not animals, we pay our rent, we just want justice,” she said. “I’m so scared. I don’t want to die, I don’t want my children to die.”

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