Stéphane Burgatt 6:22 a.m., February 12, 2022
The football star went Friday to the city of Castellane, in Marseille, to inaugurate a health center of which he is the godfather.
A return to his origins for the footballer who grew up in this city which over the years has become a veritable "medical desert".
REPORTING
Zinedine Zidane is back in Marseille.
In La Castellane, the city of his childhood and cradle of inequality, the football star came to sponsor a medical center in a district that is sorely lacking.
And his return was not without noise.
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In the streets of the city, it was the crush to try to see the idol.
“Oh, where is Zidane?” Some shouted from the trees they climbed to try to catch a glimpse of the star.
In Marseille, no one expected the return of the prodigal son, who came to sponsor the opening of a teleconsultation medical center in this district which Zinedine Zidane himself describes as a "medical desert".
“It is not possible to let inequalities widen”
"I grew up here with my parents, my family. I know this neighborhood well, I like it, even if it has changed a little bit. It's not possible to allow inequalities to widen in access to care," said the 1998 world champion on the spot. The care center is next to the building of his childhood, now destroyed, which reinforces the symbol for all those who knew Zidane at the time, like Hakim: "It has an impact, for sure. Especially the place where he was born. We went to school together and I lived nearby. It's a lot of emotion".
The inhabitants are grateful because here, as in other cities, the general practitioners leave without being replaced, deplores Professor Philippe Metellus, the doctor behind this project.
"There is a real need for access to care for the population. And there is a very clear breach of equality in this territory," he told Europe 1. Zidane hopes that this device can be duplicated in other areas of the city.