http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2012/03/marseille/dickey-text

unfortunately this article chooses to go the political root and see this gold city through the lens of France’s tensions between secularism and liberty. as much as the author tries to remain objective in light of the perceived threat of the “Muslim invasion”, by focusing on it, the reader gets the impression that the city is engulfed in such religious fervor.

I love Marseille. It is the place in France that feels most like American urbanity. The mayor speaks of the critical aspect which is that “when many French cities threw up housing projects for immigrants in distant suburbs. ‘We did the opposite.’ says Gaudin, ‘We built in the city.” Thus avoided is the European ghettoization in which the ghetto is invisible from the historic cobblestone sidewalks. In Marseille the bars with delicious wine can be next to the Halal butcher. And as a mademoiselle who recognizes the taste, flavors, and value of olives as cross-national, I love Marseille for encompassing it all.