On the hills to the north of Marseille, tower blocks were popping up like mushrooms, as housing for industrial workers and their immigrant reinforcements. The main building, which is metres long, overlooks Port de l'Estaque.
In a new wing β all glass and concrete β was added. Le Monde visited on a Thursday, almost at the end of the school year, coinciding with a party for the top year.
Several young women were inflating balloons. The college seems like an oasis of tranquillity, surrounded by "problem" estates. Just up the road the tower blocks of Consolat-Mirabeau are the source of regular incursions into the car park, despite the fence. Despite the summer weather, the cicadas and the smell of rock roses, what is striking is the imprint of poverty and violence.
For the past 20 years the area has been gripped by unemployment and its attendant woes: increasingly casual employment, single-parent families, pensioners living behind bolted doors, single women struggling to make ends meet. The past two years have made things even worse: "There are things we didn't see before, like the dustbins being picked over every day, organised prostitution and youth suicides," says Patricia Bonin, a member of the parent-teacher association.
The next day a video projector was stolen from a classroom, the 21st theft of this sort since September last. It's a pain," says the school's head, Olivier Briard. He adds, though, that the previous year he had to cope with a shootout in front of the college and a student suicide. But the facts and figures all endorse that view. Students come from nine neighbouring secondary schools.
