In desperation, residents of Marseille, France, are pleading for a “Batman”-type superhero to rescue them from increasingly violent criminals prepared to shoot, stab, or drown anyone who gets in their way.

 

A mock petition asking ‘'Will it take Batman to save Marseille?” has been set up and has so far received thousands of signatures. A dedicated Facebook page has also received nearly 4,000 “likes,” the Huffington Post UK reported.

 

The petition says that the police presence in the city — France’s second largest — has not been effective in preventing crime and accuses government official of using “sound bites and rhetoric, instead of action” in confronting the problem.

 

“'A Batman for Marseille’ aims to encourage Marseille residents to take their own security and not simply outbid opportunistic communication and political meningitis," the petition says.

 

Marseille, one of France’s poorest cities, has long had a reputation as a haven for gangs. It was home to a major heroin ring known as “The French Connection,” the basis for a popular 1971 movie.

 

But in the past few years, gangs who control the city’s narcotics trafficking have become bolder and more aggressive.

Aided by an influx weaponry such as Kalashnikov assault rifles and knockoffs smuggled in from Eastern Europe, officials and the public say criminals operating in Marseille are growing.more violent, according to a report in The Local, an English-language French newspaper.

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Demands for a crackdown have mounted in the wake of the killing of pensioner Jacques Blondel, 61, gunned down earlier this month trying to stop a robbery at a tobacco shop.

 

Blondel knocked the robbers over with his car then confronted them with a baseball bat and pepper spray. They fatally shot him in front of his wife and granddaughter.

 

Blondel was hailed a hero by French Interior Minister Manuel Valls, who described his attempt to intervene as “an act of bravery that commands respect.” One of the suspected assailants has been arrested.

 

The fatal attack was the latest in a string of brazen violent crimes in Marseille this year.