The talisman of this team was Zinédine Zidane, a native of Marseilles whose family, of Berber origin, came originally from Algeria.
"The great majority of French Muslims are melting successfully into the social mainstream," comments Soheib Bencheikh, the liberal mufti of Marseilles.
They blockaded ports, briefly kidnapped the company's boss, seized a ferry and then set sail from Marseilles.
Most of the powerful moments took place at outdoor rallies, such as Mr Mélenchon's at the Place de la Bastille or on the beach in Marseilles.
The other nationalist option is of a different, poisonous sort: it is the xenophobic brand of the far right.Vitriol in VitrollesAs good a place as any to peer into the murky hole into which the wrong sort of nationalism can plunge is the southern French town of Vitrolles, a 1970s creation that has grown into a spillover suburb for those who want to flee from Marseilles.
After all, while the Marseilles fans struggled to find a job, Mr Tapie's financial sins as owner of their club and of businesses such as Adidas let him live the life of a king, with a fine house in Paris and a giant yacht on the Côte d'Azur.
Maillot's personal drive, in tandem with the princess's support, has made Monaco an exceptional home for dancers, as well as a destination for audiences, who come from as far as Marseilles and Milan.
We have nothing in France to equal such things, nothing to be compared to the port of London, which eclipses anything of the sort in Bordeaux, Le Havre or Marseilles.
So let me tell you more about the pleasure of treachery, how I bit Lucien until he bled while he opened up like an anemone, how I sucked off Bernardini, the head of the Marseilles secret police.
As we drove against the rush-hour traffic towards my hotel in the centre, you could see that, along with Marseilles, Naples, Barcelona or Beirut, this was one of the great Mediterranean cities; in the dusk, I could still make out the pine forests of the surrounding hills and the magnificent dark-blue sweep of the bay.
Highlights have included a concert by IAM, a hip-hop band from Marseilles, and an appearance by Grandmaster Flash, a pioneer of American rap.
