Amine Kessaci has been targeted with death threats and lost two brothers to drug violence. But that has not silenced the 22-year-old activist running on an anti-drug platform in next month’s municipal elections in Marseille, the French port city known as a hub for the drug trade. Thousands marched in November to protest after his 20-year-old brother was killed in what authorities suspect was a hit ordered by drug gangs to punish his activist brother. Kessaci, the son of Algerian immigrants, grew up in a public housing project overrun with gangs. He advocates community policing as well as grass-roots efforts to improve conditions in Marseille's housing projects, where thousands live in poverty.
