At 17, Amine Kessaci found himself seated close to the president of France, Emmanuel Macron, who had come to Marseille to kick off his second presidential campaign in 2021.
Well-known for his top-down approach to policymaking, Mr. Macron described his plan to inject large amounts of state money into Marseille, France’s second-most populous city, with the goal of stimulating its economy and ending its rampant violence.
With the leader of France squeezed on a seat almost next to him, Mr. Kessaci, the son of Algerian immigrants, did not miss his chance for an impromptu audience. In a voice that was simultaneously calm and combative, he urged Mr. Macron to be more inclusive in his decision-making.
“There is no point to come with a plan from Paris drafted on a plane, or I don’t know where. You have to build it with us,” he told Mr. Macron, who did not respond to the substance of Mr. Kessaci’s comment, simply asking him his age and then slightly applauding.
Less than three years later, Mr. Kessaci (pronounced keh-ssah-see) ran for a National Assembly seat as a candidate of the Green Party, part of the left-wing New Popular Front coalition. He narrowly lost — by 835 votes — in the snap legislative elections in July to Gisèle Lelouis, 72, a member of the far-right National Rally party. The election resulted in a deadlock that has yet to be broken to form a government.
Mr. Kessaci’s ambition speaks to a changing France. Elected or not, he is representative of citizens from immigrant backgrounds who are agitating to be heard and included, and who aspire to corridors of power long dominated by elites.
The legislative campaigns defined the competing visions for France’s future. The National Rally, even as it has softened some of its most incendiary language, has taken a hard line on immigration. It often argues that immigration is linked to crime and threats to French identity, though France does not keep statistics based on ethnicity.
In Mr. Kessaci’s constituency, the vote is typically split between villages outside Marseille that tend to support the far right and multicultural urban areas like Mr. Kessaci’s, where disillusionment has suppressed voter turnout.
His campaign message was simple: He understood the daily experiences of lower-income voters, especially younger ones, and he was committed to pushing for change, especially for those living in the working-class neighborhoods, or “quartiers populaires,” of northern Marseille, where he grew up.
“Life experience is what matters most to be a representative of the nation,” Mr. Kessaci said shortly after the election.
France has some politicians of ethnically diverse backgrounds in its top ranks of leadership. But in 2022, they made up only about 32 members of the 577-seat National Assembly, according to the news outlet France24, and few have a second-generation immigrant background like Mr. Kessaci’s.
In the years after World War II, immigrants from Africa — including former colonies and protectorates in the north and west — settled in the quartiers populaires in response to France’s growing need for labor. These were usually areas on the outskirts of major cities that lacked many public services, and came to embody social exclusion and economic disparity.
Mr. Kessaci grew up in one of them, in a dilapidated high-rise apartment building in Frais-Vallon, a 15-minute metro ride from Marseille’s center. It remains one of the most crime-afflicted neighborhoods in all of France.
Close to the building, where his father still lives, young men in black ski masks can be seen on any given day at checkpoints monitoring who comes and goes, and who might represent a threat to their drug trade.
“We are the ones who live among real insecurity and yet we are the ones who complain the least,” Mr. Kessaci said about concerns over crime that have fueled support for the far right.
Rachid Zerrouki, a teacher in Marseille who works with students who are disengaged academically, said he was happy to see someone with Mr. Kessaci’s background get involved in politics.
“Representation is important,” Mr. Zerrouki said.
The desperate economic and social situations these teenagers face, Mr. Zerrouki added, results in many of them being lured away from an education and into drug trafficking.
“We are struggling to even find internships so that they can imagine a career,” he said about his students.
Mr. Kessaci has a personal connection to these kinds of problems. In December 2020, Brahim Kessaci, an older sibling, was killed, his burned body found in the trunk of a car. The police could not identify him for days, until the family confirmed that a jewelry chain found with the body was his.
Karim Bentahar, who works for a government program intended to prevent youth delinquency and extremism and ran Mr. Kessaci’s campaign, said this experience was formative for Mr. Kessaci.
“I saw in him a young person who grew up too fast,” he said of their first encounter three years ago. “The brutal death of his brother nourished a positive drive, allowing him to take charge of his own destiny and to represent young people in the same situation as him with dignity.”
Mr. Kessaci’s politics are also informed by environmental and economic concerns shared by other Green Party candidates. He supports a climate tax on companies that pollute and an increase in the minimum wage.
At 16, Mr. Kessaci founded Conscience Ecologique, a nonprofit organization with the goal of bringing working-class citizens into the national conversation on sustainability issues.
“We can fix our problems ourselves,” he said. “We can clean our neighborhoods. We are capable of doing it. We are young people who read, who have ideas, who do something other than drugs.”
The organization, now called Conscience, is run by his mother, Ouassila Benhamdi. Inside its offices, in what used to be a school, there are containers with donated clothes and food and a kitchen for cooking workshops. Conscience also helps people with the paperwork they must fill out to get housing, and offers camping excursions and yoga retreats for grieving parents and others who recently lost a loved one.
“I am an example for others,” Ms. Benhamdi said of her work. “Tragedy touched me. I didn’t die, and life goes on.”
More than three years after the death of Mr. Kessaci’s brother, Marseille still struggles with drug-related violence. In 2023, 49 people were killed in violence related to the drug trade, including killings that the police call “settling scores” among gangs. Last month, a teenager was shot to death in a neighborhood near Frais Vallon, according to local news media.
Mr. Kessaci supports legalizing cannabis as a way to weaken drug gangs and is in favor of restoring Police de Proximité, a local policing program that was eliminated in 2003. Since then, instead of the police being stationed in the community, they mostly arrive only in raids.
While the program ended before Mr. Kessaci was born, he still hears stories of good community-police relations that now almost seem like a fantasy.
“People used to call the police ‘big brothers,’” he said of that calmer period. “I even remember seeing a photo of a police officer playing soccer with young people. The police have lost their deterrent force.”
Despite his electoral defeat, Mr. Kessaci said he remained optimistic about his political prospects and was focusing on increasing voter registration while he studied law at Aix-Marseille University, in Marseille.
“I am only 20 years old,” he said, “and the next time will be the right one.”
Read More: The Young Frenchman Striving to Give Voice to a Troubled Area
