Comment c'était de vivre à Marseille dans les années 70?

There's something about Marseille in the 1970s that never leaves you. The cries of the seagulls above the Old Port at six in the morning. The smell of fresh fish mingled with sea salt. And up on the hill, Notre-Dame de la Garde watching over everything. It was a time when a pastis at the bar cost about one franc. A baguette cost 90 centimes. A kilo of sardines at the Old Port could be bought for a few francs. The minimum wage was 1,308 francs a month. Le Panier was still a village within the city. Corsican, Italian, Armenian, and Greek families lived side by side. No one locked their door. In the evening, people would bring their chairs out into the street and chat with their neighbors. The knife grinder, the ice cream vendor, and the Rove cheese seller would pass by, calling out their wares. La Canebière was the backbone of Marseille. The Capucins Market, the only market in France that stayed open in the afternoon. On Saturdays, mothers would take the tram and come to do their weekly shopping. Belsunce was becoming the center of immigration. The Labourdette Towers, made of concrete. The Northern Districts with their high-rise social housing blocks built for repatriates from Algeria. L'Estaque, the fishing village where Cézanne had painted. The Corniche Kennedy at sunset with Citroën DS cars gliding along the sea. The port was the heart of Marseille. Dockworkers came out covered in salt and grease. The CGT union was powerful. Soap factories produced Marseille soap. The refineries on the Étang de Berre employed thousands of workers. The 1973 oil crisis hit everything hard. Football in Marseille wasn't a sport. It was a religion. Marcel Leclerc brought in Josip Skoblar from Yugoslavia and Roger Magnusson from Sweden. In 1970-71, Skoblar scored 44 goals—a French record that has never been broken. The European Golden Shoe. The Dalmatian Eagle. In 1971, OM became French champions. Thousands of people flooded the Canebière. In 1972, the double. Then Leclerc resigned. Brazilians Jairzinho and Paulo Cezar arrived in 1975 but couldn't save the team. In 1980, OM was relegated to the second division. Saint-Étienne was their main rival. Not Paris. Pastis was the heart of social life. A pastis or a pastis at the bar. Pétanque in the evening. Belote around the table. Sardine feasts with the neighbors. The Bar de la Marine on the Old Port, the bar from Pagnol's Marius. Bouillabaisse wasn't just fish soup. It was a sacred ritual. Scorpionfish, John Dory, conger eel, monkfish, rouille, and croutons. Every family believed their recipe was the best. Panisse, navettes (a type of flatbread) from the Four des Navettes bakery since 1781, and pizza—because Marseille was the pizza capital of France long before Paris. But Marseille hid a dark side. From the 1930s to the early 1970s, the city was the world center of heroin trafficking. The French Connection. 40 tons of heroin a year. 90% of the world's supply. The Guérini brothers. Gene Hackman's 1971 film. The dismantling in 1972. Gaston Defferre, mayor for 33 years, a hero of the Resistance but with dubious ties to organized crime. The northern districts becoming concrete prisons. The Marseille of the 1970s wasn't polite. It was raw, noisy, chaotic, and passionate. The accent was thick. The stories were exaggerated. The pastis was strong. The arguments were fierce and forgotten by the next round. Every street corner had a story. And every story was told with hands as much as with words. It wasn't perfect, but it was home. It was Marseille.