Thousands of people came together in Marseille yesterday to pay their respects to the brother of an anti-drug campaigner who was killed in France’s second largest city. His killing led to calls across the country to fight drug criminality.
Reports from AFP said that protesters yelled “Justice for Mehdi” before observing a minute of sorrow at the roundabout where the 20-year-old Mehdi Kessaci was shot and killed by a gunman while he was parked in his car on November 13.
Authorities think the murder was a “warning crime” connected to the anti-drug activities of his brother Amine Kessaci, 22, who was greeted with shouts when he joined the gathering yesterday.
Amine Kessaci is currently living under police protection, and there were a lot of police at the meeting in the southern port city that has been struck hard by drug activity.
After his half-brother Brahim was killed in a drug-trafficking conflict in 2020, the young anti-drug and environmental activist devoted himself into advocacy.
“I want justice for Mehdi.” I want justice for my other dead brother, Brahim. I want justice for all the people that died. “I want my family to be safe,” said Amine, who wasn’t sure if he would be able to go to the event until the last minute because of security worries.
A former member of parliament has asked that he be given the Legion of Honour, France’s highest honor. However, the campaigner argued that “the mothers of the neighborhoods (hit by drug crime) deserve a decoration for their courage, dignity, and daily struggle.”
“We’ve been sounding the alarm for years and speaking out because we know that silence kills.” “Every time the institutions pull back, drug trafficking gets easier,” he stated in a taped message played to the gathering yesterday.
Since the beginning of the year, more than a dozen individuals have died in turf fights and other drug-related issues in Marseille. The city has been having a hard time fighting drug crime.
“Fear can’t beat us,” claimed Benoit Payan, the mayor of Marseille.
“We must resist and fight them, wage a war against those who kill for money,” he said, calling for solidarity and refusing to let Marseille be called a “narco-city.”
“Scourge”
Politicians from all sides of the political spectrum came to the event. Mehdi’s death brought attention to drug crime across the country, and plans were made for similar events in 25 other towns and cities.
A lot of people put white flowers at the place where Mehdi, who wanted to be a police officer, was killed.
Laurent Nunez, the Minister of the Interior, called the crime a “turning point,” and President Emmanuel Macron told France to do more and apply the same methods it has used against “terrorism.”
Drug-related murders are common in Marseille, but Mehdi Kessaci’s death shocked the community.
There were more than 6,200 people in the throng, and some of them were activists who held white flowers and wore white shirts.
Anne-Marie Tagawa, a 72-year-old activist, said the meeting would be a time to think about what was going on and declare, “We are not okay with it.”
She stated that “fertile ground” in poor neighborhoods has been left behind by institutions and the government, which has allowed people to turn them into areas where crime thrives and set up “systems of violence.”
Ouassila Benhamdi, the mother of Mehdi and Brahim who died, came to the gathering in all white.
“My heart is breaking. I can’t be comforted. She said in a speech, “No mother wants to see her children die before her.” Someone else read it for her since she was too sad to do it herself.
She went on to say, “I want the government to understand how serious everything is.”
“This has to stop for the sake of all the families who are affected by this.”
About the Author
