Marseille: French Connection True Crime Walking Tour｜France

Meet your guide at the Vieux-Port and set off on a journey through Marseille’s dark past. Discover how the city became the epicenter of the global heroin trade from the 1950s to the 1970s.

Learn about the French Connection, a Corsican-Marseille network that exported heroin to the United States. Hear about the local chemical industry and the indirect support of former Corsican resistance fighters and political networks.

Next, head to the Hôtel de Ville and the Quai du Port. Hear about the Guerini clan, Corsican godfathers who controlled the docks, nightclubs, and local politics. Learn about their double life as benefactors and resistance fighters, while secretly being the masters of the global heroin trade.

Continue to Rue de la République, where grand Haussmann buildings hid warehouses, money laundering, and illicit goods trafficking. Hear about clandestine laboratories in the neighborhood’s basements.

Next, head to La Joliette, the heart of the smuggling operation. See the old warehouses, now restored as modern offices, and learn about the logistics of the heroin trade. Hear how heroin was refined in Marseille’s suburbs and shipped from the docks to Le Havre and then to the United States, hidden in containers of soap or wine.

Continue to Le Panier, Rue Sainte and the Opéra, where bars, cabarets, and nighttime businesses were part of the network. Finally, end your tour at Fort Saint-Jean and the Mucem footbridge, where the film, the chase, and the end of the myth come together.