After vandals desecrated Muslim gravestones in a public cemetery last summer, the presiding imam chose only one non-Muslim to speak at the rededication ceremony -- a Tunisian-born leader of the Jewish community.
Last month, a Jewish representative attended the festival of Eid al-Adha, one of Islam's most important holidays, at a local civic center. A few days later, a leading Muslim cleric took part in a commemoration ceremony for the hundreds of local Jews deported to Nazi death camps during World War II.
True melting pot
Marseille, population 800,000, a proud and bristly Mediterranean port, has since ancient times mixed diverse cultures and faiths. Today it is home to nearly 200,000 Muslims and 80,000 Jews, the continent's third-largest Jewish population center.
All the ingredients for protracted sectarian violence would seem to exist in large supply -- a young and impassioned imam, pugnaciously pro-Israel Jews, the anti-immigrant National Front, poverty, unemployment. But while Paris and other European cities have experienced waves of anti-Semitic violence and political agitation against immigrants, Marseille has only occasional outbreaks and remains generally at peace with itself.
City and community leaders cite multiple explanations: the leading role played by Marseille Hope, a committee of clerics who meet whenever trouble arises; an inclusive City Hall; the popularity of the city's multiethnic soccer team; even the benign lassitude caused by the hot Mediterranean sun. The city's police chief says his officers take full advantage of tough new national laws against hate crimes to crack down before incidents get out of hand.
With its unusual harmony, Marseille offers an example to Europe as societies that were solidly white, Christian and monolingual for centuries evolve toward multiculturalism. Migration from the Arab world has given many cities large Muslim minorities. Eastern Europeans have moved west seeking jobs and opportunity.
"It's obvious there are problems here," said Nassim Khelladi, the Algerian-born director of the social and cultural center at La Castellane, a public housing project in the north end of the city that is predominately Muslim. "But there's a huge amount of respect in this city and a great willingness to work together."
A gateway to Europe
All sides in Marseille, politicians and clerics alike, have learned to engage one another to find ways to deal with potential breeding grounds for crime and despair. And they share a willingness to bend or ignore some of the rules of French society in order to keep the peace.
Marseille has long been an entry point for immigrants to France. Waves of Italians, Corsicans, Armenians, Algerians, Comorans, North African Jews and, most recently, Eastern Europeans have made their way here over the past century. In theory, keeping with this country's ethos of secular republicanism, all of them have integrated into French culture, maintaining their religious and ethnic identity as a separate, private matter. In reality, however, ethnic identity is pivotal.
"There are no pure French people in Marseille," said Salah Bakri, an Algerian-born special adviser to the mayor whose job is to keep track of tensions within and between ethnic factions.
It is official French policy to condemn what officials call "communitarianism," the sectioning off of communities by ethnic or religious group. Yet Marseille, a seaport where smuggling, black-market dealings and public corruption were long an accepted way of life, has always acknowledged ethnic politics.
Mayor Jean-Claude Gaudin, 65, is a wily veteran who has been in politics for 43 years. He funds Marseille Hope, though it is not an official body.
"By nature and training I'm a Christian Democrat, but I've learned the politics of brotherhood and of generosity," he said in a recent interview. "I've studied this voluntarily. I take part in every religious festival -- Christian, Muslim and Jew."
Gaudin has paid at least four visits to Israel over the past decade. On a table inside his ornate office atop City Hall, which dates back to the days of Louis XIV, he keeps a photo of his meeting with Israeli President Moshe Katzav alongside photos of himself with Pope John Paul II and King Hassan VI of Morocco.
One of his top aides is Deputy Mayor Daniel Sperling, who has accompanied Gaudin on all of his trips to Israel and plays the role of unofficial liaison between City Hall and the Jewish community. So is he the official Jewish representative in city administration? "Not at all," Sperling said. So is it an accident that he happens to be Jewish? "Not at all," he also replied. "I'm against communitarianism," Sperling added. "The public space is for all citizens and we can't only represent one part of the community." But he acknowledged the reality that there is "secret activity" as well.
Outspoken cleric challenges leadership
Perhaps the biggest challenge in recent years to Marseille's get-along, go-along policies has been the emergence of Mourad Zerfaoui, an Algerian-born cleric in his late thirties who enjoys much support among younger Muslims.
When the French government established a series of Muslim regional councils two years ago, Zerfaoui surprised almost everyone here by winning an upset victory over Bachir Dahmani, an establishment figure and co-founder of Marseille Hope.
Zerfaoui's Union of Islamic Organizations of France is considered the most radical of the main Muslim associations. He has denounced the French government's decision to ban Muslim girls from wearing traditional head scarves to public school, and criticized older Muslim leaders as puppets of the government. He has also refused to speak with some members of the press corps, asserting that they have distorted his views and wrongly portrayed him as a radical.
At first, Mayor Gaudin's office did not seem to know how to deal with Zerfaoui. But as time passed, the mayor sought to bring the new leader into the fold. For this year's Eid festival, Zerfaoui announced that for the first time the community would sponsor prayers at a local civic center. Several imams boycotted the session, arguing it was sacrilegious to conduct such a holy service in a municipal building. But several thousand Muslims attended, as did the mayor. Zerfaoui seemed to bask in the success.
New mosque divides community
The biggest issue dividing the Muslim community is a project to build a grand mosque. Marseille's Catholics have a cathedral and Jews a great synagogue -- only Muslims lack their own central place of worship, and a piece of city land near an old slaughterhouse has been set aside for the project. But the mayor says it cannot be built until Muslim leaders come to agreement on who would preside.
"The Muslim community is very divided," Gaudin said. "They want a mosque as a significant symbol and I agree, but with the condition that all Muslims are in agreement because lots of them prefer to keep their mosques to themselves. I'm criticized enough by everyone else -- I don't want to be criticized by the Muslims as well."
One ethnic leader who professes to have no problems with Zerfaoui is Zvi Ammar, president of the Jewish Consistory of Marseille. Ammar says he speaks regularly with Zerfaoui and considers him an authentic voice of the Muslim community. "Our natural instinct is to talk to the people who talk nicely and say what we want to hear," says Ammar, 47, who speaks fluent Arabic. "What interests me are the real leaders in the community, those who control the streets."
When vandals desecrated Muslim graves, Ammar told a local newspaper he felt the same sense of pain and humiliation as if they were Jewish graves. When Zerfaoui organized a ceremony to rededicate the tombstones, he invited Ammar to address the crowd.
Zerfaoui refused several requests for an interview for this article. But one of his closest allies, Mohammed Yassine, secretary general of the Regional Council of Muslim Culture, said their movement was seeking to build "an Islam of France" that is moderate and distinctly French yet at the same time honors traditional Muslim views.
"We know we have to convince people that Islam is for peace and that it is respectful of human life," he said.
Yassine said Muslims here feel pain over the plight of Palestinians, but would not act on that by harming Jews. "We have compassion for the Palestinian people, but we don't feel responsible for them," he says. "The problems of France we will solve in France."
Special correspondent Alexandra Topping contributed to this report.
