Marseille Mayor Faces Death Threats Over Couscous: Far-Right Backlash Ignites Debate on Cultural Tolerance

It all started with the publication of a video showing Benoît Payan eating couscous during his participation in the "Kouss Kouss Festival", a culinary festival organized in partnership with the city of Marseille. This video apparently did not please an X account named "anonymous". "Poor idiot Payan!! The useful idiot of the Muslim Brotherhood!! And he will be among the first when he has served as a stepping stone for them!! What a piece of shit!!," can be read in a post made by the account, including an image illustrating two armed and hooded men, framing a man, blindfolded, about to be hanged.

In the wake of this, the mayor reacted to the threat message. "Threatened with death for eating a couscous as part of a Marseille culinary festival, I will obviously give in to nothing and never," wrote Benoît Payan in a post on X this Sunday. He assured that Marseille was "a city of living together." "We will do everything to ensure that this continues, despite the intimidation, far-right or not," continued the mayor of the Phocaean city.

Faced with death threats, the mayor of Marseille can count on the support of the two deputies of the Bouches-du-Rhône. "None of our political disagreements should outweigh the need to stand united against the attacks of racists, pro-genocide and the far right. You have my support and that of the insubordinates in the face of these vile threats," wrote Sébastien Delogu. "We will never let this hatred from the far right pass, obviously directed through him against Marseille, the city where we all want to live together," hammered the Socialist deputy of Marseille Laurent Lhardit.