Overdose

Political refugees are getting a cool reception in many parts of the world, but few are so unpopular as those who are pouring into France's seaport city of Marseille. They are the refugee European pieds-noirs from Algeria. Since May 1, the new arrivals have swollen Marseille's population from 800,000 to nearly 1,000.000--and the city is beginning to burst at the seams. "The pieds-noirs are like sleeping pills," said one local official. "You can safely swallow only a certain dose."

Marseille figured it was getting an overdose. Of the 12,000 hotel rooms in the city, 8,000 are permanently rented to the strangers; housing conditions are so overcrowded that often as many as 15 pieds-noirs live in the same small apartment. Midtown Marseille has become one huge traffic jam as 800 pied-noir cars arrive from Algeria daily; and the newcomers have an irksome habit of breaking the city's antinoise ordinance by honking the five notes Al-ger-ie Fran-c,aise on their car horns. Many angry parents have discovered that the hordes of children from Algeria enrolled in Marseille schools next fall have left no room for their own kids.

Though thousands of pieds-noirs are unemployed, most scorn available jobs as laborers or on the docks as "Arab work." Some have turned to crime, are readily identifiable as holdup men because of their throaty accents. So alarmingly has Marseille's crime rate risen, in fact, that the central government in Paris has been forced to dispatch 800 riot troopers to the city to beef up the local police force.

Despite the frosty reception of local residents, the pieds-noirs are in no hurry to leave Marseille. Most stay because the seaport's sunny climate is so similar to that of Algeria; others remain because they hope to return home some day, prefer to stay as close as possible to the Mediterranean. With this in mind, the pieds-noirs are clamoring for 45,000 new housing units in the city. But they have no chance of getting them; the government is just as determined as the Marseille city fathers to move them to the north, where more jobs are available. Last week the French Cabinet announced a crash program to build 25,000 new low-cost housing units for the pieds-noirs all over France. Only 3,500 were allotted to Marseille.

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