Le Figaro Marseille
Aida holds on to the window sill she is leaning on, as if she were about to wobble.
In this small room in the heart of the Kalliste city, in the northern districts, the Marseillaise recounts in snatches, and in a low voice, her now traumatized daily life.
On January 30, in his building, in the middle of the night, a fire broke out in the apartment of one of his neighbors.
A squatted apartment which accidentally caught fire due to auxiliary heating.
In the disaster, a four-year-old child lost his life in this condominium, one of the most degraded in Marseille.
“I was with my great-niece, who is 9 months old,”
says Aïda.
It was the middle of the night.
Fortunately, the dog barked.
My mother prefers to leave this neighborhood.
We no longer feel safe
. ”
On the other side of the table, Sabrina Agresti-Roubache listens to him.
Barely renamed Secretary of State in charge of city policy, the Marseillaise decided to go this Thursday to this bereaved city.
And this close friend of Emmanuel Macron found herself confronted with the distress of a neighborhood still deeply marked by the tragedy.
“Certainly, the Dispav (crisis management and anticipation system) has come,”
notes Marion from the Marseille Nord Habitat association.
But the children remain traumatized, without necessarily verbalizing it.
We hear stories of children who no longer sleep and who cry at night.
Wouldn’t it be possible to have priority appointments for them with psychologists, as close as possible to the city?”
An idea that the minister promises to implement soon.
Read alsoThe Kallisté city, symbol of Marseille's urban bankruptcy
“More and more complicated”
“Last Tuesday again, I was on duty at a nearby college,”
confided to Minister Inès, a social worker.
During recess, I spoke with a lot of young people.
And they tell me that even at home, they no longer feel safe.
We try to have a speech of comfort despite everything but we lack words.
I try to see the glass half full and make them see things like that but it’s more and more complicated.”
A distress which can be explained by a reality: for decades, the Kalliste co-ownership has been plagued by insecurity and unsanitary conditions.
“I had been rehoused in building A after the fire which had already taken place in another building, building G. There too it was in the middle of the night, and there also the dog, fortunately, called,”
continues Aida.
A building evacuated by the police in 2022 due to the presence of around a hundred squatters inside.
Since the tragic fire which killed a 4-year-old child at the end of January, other disasters have broken out in the same building.
During this trip, responding to the request of local elected officials, the Secretary of State promised the holding in the coming days of a steering committee that she would chair to resolve the problems in Kalliste.