The gold of the Republic shines brightly this February 23 in the large reception room of the Bouches-du-Rhône prefecture. The police chief, Frédérique Camilleri, celebrates her departure from Marseille, three years and three months after taking office. Appointed in Essonne, this Friday she invites the main personalities of a bustling city, in which she has had to face drug banditry, unprecedented urban riots and some social eruptions. In the midst of major local elected officials and representatives of law enforcement and institutions, an immaculately white beard stands out. A few steps from the Secretary of State for Citizenship and the City, Sabrina Agresti-Roubache, to whom he gave a kiss upon arrival, stands Rachid Zeroual, the leader of the South Winners, the main club of supporters of the Olympique de Marseille (OM).
A priori disconcerting, the presence of the most famous Marseille ultra at the farewell of the boss of the police proves that the one who once boasted of being able to “blow up the presidents of OM” has built a place for itself that goes well beyond football. Untouchable, the leader of the Winners, as his detractors insist? Rather unavoidable, after thirty-seven years of fervor in the stadiums, of social activism in the streets of Marseille and of political activism behind the scenes. “We worked with the prefect on several files. There was respect… I think that’s why she invited me “, smells, afterwards, the one the whole town calls “Rachid”.
However, there would be some reasons why this rash fifty-year-old with a gravelly voice and copper complexion should not be one of the VIPs of the day. Like his sentence to nine months in prison, five of which were suspended, in the case of the attack on the Commanderie, the OM training center, in January 2021. The third prison sentence of his life after those inflicted for violence between Marseille supporters, in 2003 and 2009. In the case, he appealed and still denies having initiated the assault on the center by the three hundred ultras and the deluge of smoke bombs, mortars fireworks and firecrackers which shocked Marseille and caused the departure of the ex-president of the club Jacques-Henri Eyraud.
Then, at the start of the 2023 school year, there was also this national controversy at the heart of which he found himself. Angry by a dismal start to the season, a humiliating elimination in the preliminary round of the Champions League and by the increase in subscription prices, the leaders of the seven groups of OM supporters expressed, on September 18, their anger at the club management. The meeting is tense. The president, Pablo Longoria, Eyraud’s successor, comes out stunned. The coach, the Spaniard Marcelino García Toral, resigned immediately.
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