Ask Jean-Claude Gaudin why Marseilles has seemed immune to the riots that swept France in the last two weeks and the mayor of France’s third-biggest city is likely to draw you a picture.

“These are the hills,” he says, sketching a semi-circle across a sheet of paper. “On the other side is the sea,” he barks, scrawling a line down the other side of the page. “We are here, in the middle, all together.”