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Marseilles residents turn McDonald’s into community foodbank

A closed McDonald’s has been transformed into a lifeline for Marseille and now operates as a food bank.

In between the majority Muslim neighbourhoods of Saint-Marthe and Saint-Barthélémy sits the first McDonald’s to be built in the ‘banlieues’ (suburbs) around France’s major cities.

The fast-food restaurant was opened thanks to help from government funding in order to provide jobs in these areas, known for high levels of poverty and unemployment.

The McDo, as it is known in France, employed 77 locals on protected contracts, and provided those in the neighbourhoods with a place to eat.

This was up until 2018, when the company decided to shut the site down despite sit-ins, strikes, and even the manager, Kamel Guemari, threatening to light himself on fire in an attempt to save the livelihoods of his employees.

Its closing down was a blow to this marginalised community, who faced some of the harshest effects of the pandemic.

‘When the first lockdown struck, people were more worried about dying of starvation than COVID around here,’ says volunteer Fati Bouarua.

In response to the crisis, Bouarua, Guemari and the other employees rallied together to resurrect the building for a new purpose, and a new name L’Apres M.

Initially, the project was to feed homeless citizens, after former employees took over the building.

Local farmers donated fruits and vegetables, shops offered food and funds were raised by inspired locals.

After a social media campaign caught the attention of residents, a co-operative effort helped transform the McDo into a food bank serving over 1,000 people a week.

There are now over 47 local associations involved in keeping the place running, and 30-40 volunteers who give their time to feed their community.

Inside, the old McDonald’s has been transformed- volunteers have painted over the original décor with colourful paint and made it into a social hub.

Credit: Frank L’Opez

One corner of the restaurant is now a children’s library, another serves as a computer room and even the green verges in the parking lot have been transformed into vegetable patches by French-Algerian volunteer gardener Yazid, who wants to show the local kids where their food comes from.

Over the display menus are lists of families due to receive food parcels, and a range of volunteers prepare to deliver boxes of drinks and fruit to refugees and the homeless in the city centre.

L’Apres M is a beacon of hope for the local community that is needed now more than ever in the midst of a pandemic.

‘This isn’t just a food bank, this is more like a lifeboat.’

The vision doesn’t stop there: Bouarua explained the future for this ‘lifeboat’.

‘The local mayor has promised that the town hall will make a compulsory purchase of the building and its land’, which allows the cooperative to either buy the land directly or take on a lease.

Credit: Frank L’Opez

‘We have also started this company called Le Part Du Peuple (The People’s Share).’

‘Everyone who donates owns a share. It’s a company run as a non-profit organisation.’

The volunteers intend to create a restaurant again, but on a sliding scale- for the sans-papiers (undocumented migrant) you can come an eat for free twice a week, for example, and those on minimum wage will only pay €3 per person.

The project also intends to re-employ 37 employees, who lost their jobs after the McDonald’s shut down back in 2018.

She continued to reflect on the hardships that they have faced before; ‘We have seen that marching and screaming in the street is not enough, and so we need to make social alternatives that cannot be crushed by capital.’

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