France’s second-biggest city, Marseille, has been plagued with gang crime for months, and the problem is only getting worse. With the police seemingly incapable of bringing law and order to the streets, Marseille residents have reacted in the only reasonable manner available to them — they’ve called for help from Batman.

To citizens, the streets of Marseille now feel even meaner than those of Bruce Wayne’s native Gotham, especially following the death of 61-year-old Marseille resident Jacques Blondel last week. Blondel was killed while trying to stop a robbery, and his death appears to be the last straw for some fed-up residents of the troubled city. Unable to trust local politicians or police officers to clean up the town, Marseille residents have started an online petition asking if it will take Batman to save Marseille.

The clearly tongue-in-cheek proposal is less a request for an actual vigilante to take to Marseille’s rooftops battling crime. Instead, it functions as a vote of no confidence in the current system, which has seen 13 gang-related killings take place in the city so far this year, according to Metro. Essentially, the more than 3,000 people who have signed the petition so far are saying that anything — even a fictional crime fighter in a spandex bodysuit patrolling their streets — is better than the current situation. Then again, France already has a European Batman available just across the English Channel. Maybe Fat British Batman will prove to be just the hero that Marseille needs? I mean, hell, anyone but Ben Affleck, right?

(via Facebook, image via A Batman for Marseille)

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