a boxing club gives hope to young people

“He who fights can lose. He who does not fight has already lost.” Muhammad Ali? No, Bertolt Brecht. The quote from the German playwright is displayed large on the walls of the room of BCR 13 (Boxing Club Rap’n boxe), the Busserine boxing club, located in the northern districts of Marseille (Bouches-du-Rhône). An old refurbished hangar, attached to the football stadium and the dojo, where amateur and professional boxers meet every evening.

“When we got the place back, it was a ruin. We have renovated everything to offer a place of welcome worthy of the name to all those who come through the door,” recalls Slimane Safriouine, the emblematic manager of the club, created in 2003, whom everyone here calls Slim.

Built in the 1960s, La Busserine is one of those Marseille cities which too often makes the headlines in the newspapers regarding its settling of scores linked to drug trafficking. Long isolated behind an expressway which crossed the district, it benefited, in 2024, from a large-scale urban renovation operation. Symbol of this redevelopment, a gigantic wooded plain equipped with games for children has seen the light of day, making us forget a little about the omnipresent concrete.

Boxers, coaches and volunteers from BCR 13 are fully participating in this renaissance by offering local kids a reason to strike and a framework to do so. “Most of those who come in here could have been future offenders. In the ring, we do social work,” confides Slimane Safriouine. He and the other coaches offer discipline, transmit a form of courage and push sometimes misguided young people to surpass themselves. With the promise, for everyone, of emerging from it grown.