In Marseilles’s quartiers nord, teenage drug dealers have one decision to make: wait or run. The boys seem to languish in this perpetual state of flux.
Seventeen-year-old Benze is a chouf — French for lookout. Dressed head to toe in black, hood pulled up, with rainbow-reflective ski glasses hiding half of his face, he looks as if he should be in the Alps. Instead, Benze cuts a small figure dwarfed by a 15-storey tower block. The building looms monstrous and frightening above the plastic and gravel debris at ground level. He describes his role as though reading out a contract: “You can do either half-time or full-time. Part-time is from 11am to 5pm and full-time is from 11am until 2am.”
