Marseille has been France’s drug capital for over 50 years, but the violence of Marseille’s drug war is escalating, as rival gangs kidnap, torture, kill and even set one another on fire. Ashley spends time in the notorious northern suburbs known as the ‘cités’, meeting young men involved in fighting the bloody drug war as well as riding along with the police on a night-time patrol. To understand the present, he also needs to learn of Marseille’s past, and meets a former gangster who was part of the city’s infamous French Connection drugs trade in the 1970s and 80s. He also meets people trying to steer young men away from gang life, video calls a gang boss behind bars and meets the small-time dealer who became a deadly hitman.