A version of this story appears in Huck Issue Get your copy now, or subscribe to make sure you never miss another issue. Emmanuel Macron knows the French people are losing their minds as he tells them to be home by 6pm.
It is March and a daily curfew is enforced by military-like police. They patrol the public squares. The bars remain closed. He did this from a gold-plated room. A victorious monument to commemorate an absurd notion of victory, now an arena of the marginalised. Here, under the arch, as the streets empty out, there are people genuinely struggling, having made unfathomable journeys that most people would find impossible to comprehend.
The arch itself was inspired by the Romans. They greet each other warmly, but treat passers-by with suspicion. While this is happening, football fans in fluorescent bibs β the Ultras β hand out food. They are supporters of Olympique de Marseille OM : the only top-level club in the city.
The badge is scrawled on walls, worn on chests and visible in shop windows everywhere. The Ultras present have mobilised to work with food banks β they are here in order to care for those most in need. The mood is that of tension, punctured by occasional joviality. It has earned me the trust of a volatile crowd. This is, after all, a city that wears its colour in smoke: where protest and carnival are commonplace.
Few embody this feeling like Gabo. The kind of place you go to have the tear gas washed from your eyes. Sadia, the local matriarch, warns me from behind the counter: no jokes about OM. Gabo and I talk on the terrace. Gabo tells me not to ask about the Ultras who were there that day. He expounds on the event with verve and then retracts it all. Later on, at his home, he screams lyrics from The Exploited. I watch him as he drunkenly shadow-boxes at imaginary opponents, ghosts of things he was forced to take apart.
