Ezra Levant reports from Marseille on July 4th amid riots after police shot 17-year-old Algerian Muslim Nahal Marzouk, who lacked proper paperwork despite prior encounters and recent charges. Over 1,300 arrests—average age 17—highlight ethnic tensions between wealthy, French-dominated zones and immigrant-heavy neighborhoods where Arabic prevails. Interviewees like Mohamed (Tunisian-identifying) and Khalid blame systemic racism, while others cite colonialism’s legacy in healthcare and politics, demanding "Justice Pour Nahal." Graffiti, armored police, and community divisions underscore France’s fractured identity, raising questions about whether colonial-era biases still shape its institutions today. [Automatically generated summary]
shame on you you sensorious bug i'm recording this on sunday uh even though it'll be aired on tuesday I have come to France.
I'm in the city of Marseille on the Mediterranean coast, beautiful city.
I first fell in love with the city through the Netflix show by the name Marseille, starring Gérard Depardieu.
He's a great French actor, but really the star of the show was the city, and I'd never been here until today.
I came here not for tourism and not for other happy reasons either.
I came here because Marseille is one of the cities that has been rocked by riots in recent days after the killing by police of a 17-year-old Algerian man of Muslim descent.
It's unsure whether or not he himself was born in France.
There's a terrible video of the encounter he had with police.
These days, everything is on video, isn't it?
He was driving a Mercedes.
It wasn't stolen, but apparently he didn't have the right paperwork for it.
He had had several encounters with police.
In fact, quite a number.
He had charges from just a week earlier, and the police accosted him, and they shot him.
People across France saw that video, and it was simply proof for so many French people of Muslim descent and North African descent that in fact the system was racist, the police especially.
Riots broke out in Paris and across France and even in neighboring Belgium.
More than 1,300 people have been arrested in those riots.
Average age, 17.
We're here on Sunday night, the day after that young man was buried.
Women in Immodesty00:07:27
Obviously, the police presence behind me, I don't know if you can quite make them out, but those vans are all police vans.
Inside them are riot police.
You can see some of them wearing their exoskeletons on their body.
They're not yet wearing their helmets, and some of them have guns on their holsters, but are not yet holding more serious weapons.
So I don't know how the night is going to end.
We've actually only been here a few hours, but here's what I've seen.
The first thing I've seen is that there are two Frances, or at least in this city, two Marseilles.
There's the one you think you know.
The beautiful history and architecture, the rich French culture, language, art, architecture, the beautiful port full of yachts, the tourist dream of France.
And then you have a different France, and in Marseille, it's, I don't know, about 30% of the population, depends on the neighborhood you're in.
It could be 40, 50, or even 60%.
Just a few blocks away from the beautiful old port are neighborhoods that are completely immigrant or descended from immigrants where the language on the street that you hear is not French.
It's Arabic or another language that you might not understand.
It's a separate kind of France.
Now, I spoke with some of these people.
I was waiting for the night to fall to see if there would be any dramatic action.
And I just went up to some of them on the various cafes.
That French tradition of sitting on a cafe outside a coffee shop into summer's evening is a beautiful tradition.
Again, in Paris, you may know it where women come in their high fashion and men go in their fashion and maybe it's romantic.
And there's some of that here in Marseille, to be sure.
Right down by the old port.
But a couple of blocks away, and as you're starting to get, I mean, like I'm just looking at some shops right here.
You have Babylon Palace, it's Iraqi food, you have Turkish patuseria.
So many of these different coffee shops are Tunisian or Algerian or Moroccan or Turkish or whatever.
As you get more and more into the Muslim neighborhood, you'll notice a demographic change.
Some of these patios will have 30, 40 people sitting out front of them without a single woman there.
So that's, it's a, on the outward face of it, it may look just like France has always looked.
Oh, look at that.
People sitting in the gorgeous weather having a coffee and a croissant.
But if you look a little bit more carefully, you'll notice that in many of them, there are no women.
And those few of them that are more restaurants than coffee shops, any women who are there are in a bias.
Now, that's not 100% of the case.
There are still some women, often tourists, who are dressed, I guess, in the eyes of Sharia law, immodestly.
But the demographic trend is clear which way the city is going.
And I mentioned that because I've talked to a number of these men, and they use different language, but they said that that divide, the racist divide against them, is what motivates their revolt.
They use the phrase assassination for how the police treated the 17-year-old man who was killed.
And instead of using the word riot, they use the word revolt.
And it is a revolt in a way, but it's also quite something when you torch a neighborhood.
The neighborhood isn't racist, a building isn't racist, a pharmacy, a grocery store.
It has that anarchy feeling to it that the United States had with the series of Black Lives Matter riots in 2016.
And these riots smack of an ethnic divide.
It's only Sunday, late afternoon.
It's not even nightfall yet, so we don't know if the riots are going to continue.
But in the rest of today's show, I'm going to show you some of my interviews with these Muslim men.
You know, no Muslim woman would speak with me.
I don't know if they're allowed to even.
Some of them put their best foot forward and said, look, France is not essentially racist.
There's pockets of racism everywhere.
We all have it in our hearts.
But we love France.
It's a great place to be.
I heard some really refreshing comments like that.
But in my absolutely atrocious French, I asked some of them, in your heart, are you an Algerian first or a Frenchman first?
And almost all of them said Algerian first.
And I said to some of them, my atrocious French, I said, how can you say that the French don't include you on equal terms when you yourself do not identify or express yourself as a Frenchman?
If you say you're an Algerian first, how can you then have the same, at the same time, a complaint that the old stock French don't regard you as true French?
There were some interesting comments I heard, and we'll have translations on the screen.
But I was having a wonderful time in this wonderful city, and I was enjoying my conversations with people from the Muslim community when one man came up to us who had spoken very vigorously to us earlier about how he was a Muslim first and a French person second, and he extremely aggressively demanded that we delete the footage.
And he was physically putting his hands on our equipment, threatening to call police, even though he said he was worried about police.
It was a very spooky situation.
We were about three blocks away from our where I'm standing now, and although there's a ton of police behind me, three blocks away, there wasn't a cop in sight.
And had this man wished to do violence to us, he absolutely could have.
Had he shouted something in Arabic that I wouldn't have understood that would have motivated others to come and pummel me, I'm sure he could have.
In the end, he did not.
But in that moment, I got a feeling for the differences here.
There's not a commonality.
I was otherized in that moment as they themselves felt they had been othered.
There is not a cohesion in France.
I'm not the first to say it, but there are two Frances.
And those are the two Frances that have been clashing over the last five days.
I'll show you different things in today's show.
I hope you enjoy it.
I came here really with an open mind to follow the facts wherever they lead.
And I hope in the days ahead that I'll be able to do that.
Stay with us.
Morehead.
Excusez-moi pour mon français, mon français est terrible.
Merci.
De quel pays est-ce né ici, à France, ou à un autre pays?
Je suis né en France, j'habite dans les quartiers nord, et je côtoie beaucoup le centre-ville aussi, et je suis très très affecté par la situation qu'on a actuellement sur Marseille et en France.
Racism in Marseille00:14:58
and by the context that the assassination of assassins of Nah, is that there is a difference between Paris and Marseille.
But Marseille can talk to Paris, but not the environment on Marseille, the North or the South.
In fact, they are very affected by this assassin.
And a lot of people are recognized through this assassin, in our city, and today we understand why the attack on it.
You say revolt, the others say immut.
Support you the revolt?
I understand what you want to say.
In fact, I was not a mother movement, but all revolts.
And then there are people who serve this revolt for the magazine, which also this revolt.
But my volunteer, because in reality, the source, the demands of all these cases, and all this movement, there is an initial parallel to a justice that in Marseille and in France live issues of transit because the Georgia, we think we have French children,
because we have Magrebin originally, we have African origins, and France, Georgia, we accept, And we see through illegalities, discrimination, and we will see the assassins or policy.
President Macron and other politicians the Muslims are the Muslims, like President Macron, Louis, it's not.
We're not really the police, also, Suffolk, the Nazi mother, and Nael, and this justice that Sudan, what happened to this family?
We don't know, all we know is that there is a revolt that was raised and in reality this injustice that has suffered the family of Naël, it is more a kind of feeling that each of us has suffered.
We have a feeling of injustice.
through this history.
France, all right, all these policies, it's the term, because there are France and racism.
The racism there is a first, what I say.
It's all millions of Muslims immigrated in France, if French racist French and colonization and our tour of vulnerability to how to explain to the world.
They colonize their health, and we will colonize, how we solution justice.
How?
There's justice.
Here in France, there's no justice.
There's no justice.
There's no justice.
As long as they're racist, there's no justice.
As long as there's racism, there's no justice.
There's no justice.
There's...
There's a legal plan between the people.
There's a legal plan.
They respect the religion.
They respect the Muslims.
Because the Muslims are not respected here.
And we see how terrorists are not terrorists.
You condemn Muslims who revolt to violence.
I condemn people, everyone is responsible for these acts.
Have you seen a message for President Macron?
I don't have a message for Macron.
I in the message: Islam is a religion of country.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
I appreciate that.
What's your name?
Your first name?
Mohamed.
As the prophet.
And your family, my family, in your current French first.
Just But monsieur, if you suit French numerous assistance, we are assisted.
The touch à lives the problem.
We live in the bony, and we part.
We live in the limit.
It's good.
You're giving me a lot to think about.
Thank you.
Good night, everybody.
I speak French.
I want to tell you something, my son is wearing the flag of the France team, he is French.
What's happening here?
It's a touch for France because there are two racial discriminations, discrimination, and so on.
Because France has a target at the time, with the men, so that you have not military.
The military is a Tunisian.
It's a people who saved the other time France.
Is it your daughter?
Of course, I'm French.
Is born in French?
Of course.
And in your heart, you are... Tunisian, of course.
And your daughter?
French Tunisian, we don't know.
We have some origins, like you.
You are perhaps English, of English origin.
So...
we had to condone the crime against humanity, which is a Palestine, or in France, or humiliation, everyone in the same way.
You condemn Tunisians or magazines, I will say.
The volume is not, they pay the employees, and the merchandise for the revenue.
I think that the volunteer, my patience, the volunteers.
It's not profitable to party to the magazine.
I doubt it.
Another question, what's your name?
How do you call it?
Khalid, why?
Khalid?
Khalid, yeah.
Thank you.
You have to stop the racism in France.
The TV racism is too much.
It discriminates too much the Muslim race.
At the end of the day, let the people live as they want.
That's all I have to say.
Thank you.
And live in Tunisia.
My name is Larby.
Larby, thank you.
We're from Canada and we're here in Marseille to find out what's going on and to try and understand a little bit better the events of the last few days since the shooting of NAL.
Can you share with me your thoughts on it?
Well, what happened just happened?
We wish that these guys who are doing manifestation stop doing what they are doing.
What happened just happened again?
We don't want to end up with things to go further than this.
We are waiting for the justice to say their end and to say something about it and to do the right thing.
This is what we wish for.
And I think I can't go further than this.
Fair enough.
I've spoken to some people so far, and they tell me they feel a pervasive racism, that it's everywhere.
It's in the police, it's in the political system.
And they really believe that in their hearts.
They feel the pain of racism.
Do you think that France is systemically racist?
I don't doubt that there are individuals who are racist, but do you think that France as a country is racist?
Look, everywhere, everywhere in the world, you might find people who might have that feeling that immigrants come to their country and they do stuff and they do things.
But I believe that this is a very small group who might have this feeling and they did what they just have done with that guy.
And this is not for everyone.
This is only a small group of people who have made an influence to the others.
Now it went to the media and people start saying that France is racist and I don't believe this.
I don't believe this.
What country did your family originally come from?
I'm coming from Dubois, but originally I am Algerian.
Can I ask you one more question?
And you don't have to answer it if you don't want to, but I asked it to a couple of guys earlier just to see what they thought.
I said, in your heart, do you regard yourself as French first or Algerian first or Muslim first?
I got different answers from different people.
You don't have to answer that if you don't want, but I think it's an interesting question.
What's your name?
What's your name?
Boubacer.
I... all... all...
Can I speak in French?
A little bit, in French?
Me, me, me.
Okay.
So, everyone.
Everyone, without exception, likes France, for all the values it represents and for all what it offers as opportunities, there is opportunities for all, for all, but…
There is some people in Polis, in all domains, there is some people who hate, who hate the strangers.
But all of us love France.
It's not a secret.
But when you have revenge, it's the first time.
It's just the same place.
But in reality, all just that the others accept with French also.
Les others accept.
It's a problem, I think.
I think.
Merci, do you have anything to say?
Would you like to say anything?
What's your name?
My name is Isham.
And where are you from your family originally?
Algeria.
And what are your thoughts?
I see you're wearing, your Eddie had a...
Merci.
Thanks for talking with me fellas.
All the best.
My name is Ezra.
What's your name?
My name is Isam.
Isam, and where is your family from originally?
Algeria.
Are you yourself from Algeria?
Are you from France?
And what do you make of the shooting of Nahal and the riots, the revolts in response?
Come down, si, Austria.
I speak French, but a little English.
What do you think about Nahal?
Now, Marzouk, the gene...
Yeah, he's dead.
He's a morgue.
Yeah.
Yeah.
For me, it's an accident, but it's not...
It's an accident, but it's not, for instance, it's an accident.
But it's not, for example, to let it go like that.
Because like that, there are always accidents like that.
There are always more deaths.
It's not an accident, what do you say?
Because the death, it happens for everyone, for that, for that, for that.
So it happens for him.
But I think there's a propaganda, there's a lot of racism in the world.
People are Muslims, the Algerians...
Other people, the Algerians, it's not the Moroccan, it's not the other.
Racism In France00:03:04
The Algerians, the France, the French, and the Algerians.
It's a story for a long time.
I have a question for you.
Yeah.
... In your heart, it wants...
...
Algérians?
... ... ... ... ...
Votre queue.
Moi, je vais essayer de la gérer.
You said to me that the other French are not fair to you because you are not a real French.
But you said that you are Algerian?
Yes, I am Algerian and this is my friend and this is my friend too.
We are in France, because in France it's serious.
For example, the medical side, it's a lot of things.
It's not like in Switzerland, because I live in Switzerland.
In Switzerland, it's a bit difficult.
It's not like in France.
France, is-t-elle racist?
France.
Raciste?
Raciste?
Raciste, dans quel domaine?
Il y a des domaines, il y a beaucoup de domaines.
Dans quel domaine raciste?
Pourquoi millions de musulmans, d'Algérie, Tunisie, immigrés à France, si France est raciste?
There are strong races, there are people who accept the Algerian, they love the Algerian, they work with the Algerian.
In Algeria, in Algeria, there are racists in Algeria.
Also a museum in the future and the President of France, for choice is not missiles.
Create for me, we all do the bias and the mold.
It's not musulman for me because of it.
Possible?00:05:36
But is this scenario possible?
Is it possible?
In America, Barack Obama, the President.
The United Kingdom, Rishi Sunan, the Prime Minister.
In France, is it possible?
The President of the United Kingdom, everything is possible in life.
Is it possible?
No.
For the French to vote for a Muslim candidate?
In life, in life.
Everything is possible, but for me it's not possible.
It's impossible.
It's possible.
So, it's not possible.
It's impossible.
Absolutely breaking news.
It's Ezra Levant here from Rebel News.
As you can see behind me, armored personnel carriers have now been deployed into the streets of Marseille.
I'm going to turn around so you can see behind me, just three blocks down there, is the beautiful old port of Marseille.
And just up here, you have an enormous police presence that has not been here this week.
You can see behind me the two armored personnel carriers.
They do not appear to be military, but rather police vehicles themselves.
And again, I'm just turning around a little bit so you can see there's about a dozen police keeping people back from the vehicles.
And as I tilt my camera down a bit, you can see they're wearing some body armor, including what I'm calling exoskeletons on their legs, and some of them have them on their arms.
They're not wearing their helmets.
They have some batons, and of course, they do have some heavy weapons.
There's also about a half a dozen police vans like that one.
But I've been here for several days, and this is the highest presence there's been in a couple days.
Now, I should tell you, like, let me flip the camera around again.
Behind me, you can see all the plywood boarded-up windows.
Either those windows were smashed or they're protected against being smashed.
And I don't know if you can see from here, but they have things on them like Justice Pour Nahal, Justice for Nahal.
Let's just go over there and take a look because I can't remember.
So there's smash windows and graffiti all over this town.
And again, it's remarkable how close we are.
In fact, the hotel we're staying at has a guard posted out because he said they were a threat.
So here, let me show you this.
Nick FDP Leita.
Nick means the F word.
Leita means the state.
I don't know what FDP is.
A cab, that's borrowed from the English.
Justice pour Nahal.
That's Justice for Nahal.
Nahal Marzouk, the 17-year-old Muslim who was killed by police at the end of a car chase.
They stopped him.
And in fact, the shooting was filmed, which sparked the riots.
You can see the police chatting with people casually.
I don't know if I'd say there's a tension in the air, but those vehicles do not calm things.
Maybe they calm down anyone who had big plans, but they're certainly not proof of calm.
But as you can see all around me, there's well, there's a variety of people.
In fact, I'm going to walk over now to where my colleague Efron is.
We were just about to have a bite of dinner, and I just went back to the hotel room for a minute.
He said, get back down here.
So I'll keep you posted.
Hopefully, this is just a show of force.
Oh, by the way, coming up here is a bunch of police motorcycles.
Again, that seems to be new.
Do you see that?
One, two, three, four, five.
Half dozen police motorcycles joining the police, armored personnel carriers.
I will keep you posted.
By the way, all of our updates on our visit to Marseille can be found at franceonfire.com.
And if you think this citizen journalism is useful, you can see all of our work at franceonfire.com.
And if you want to help chip in and cover the cost, I'd be grateful.
Between Efron and I, I think the cost of our journey here, even though we flew economy class and we're sharing a hotel room, is going to be about $2,800.
So if you want to help out, please do.
I'll give you updates throughout the night.
Hopefully, this is just a show of force.
You can see there's still, you know, there's moms on the street and there's tourists and there are, obviously, idle young men.
But I didn't feel tension in the air when I left the dinner place 15 minutes ago.
I mean, here's a bunch of young gals going out for some fun.
They're just walking by the armored personnel carriers in the heart of their city like it's no big deal.
You can see, unlike the British bobbies, these French police pack heat.
All right, that's it for Franceonfire.com.
Some other journalists here, as you can see, very interesting.
For Rebel News, it's Ezra Levant.
Well, that's our show for today.
Until tomorrow, on behalf of rebels everywhere, including here in Marseille, France.