French largest city Marseille residents have called on Batman for help after a recent surge in violent crime by North African Arab descent gangs.

The mock online petition and Facebook page, entitled Will It Take Batman To Save Marseille?, comes after a pensioner was shot dead last week trying to stop a robbery.

Jacques Blondel, 61, knocked the robbers over with his car and confronted them with a baseball bat and pepper spray after they held up a tobacconist.

He tried to reason with them and grabbed for their gun but was shot in the thigh and stomach.

France’s second biggest city has also seen 13 gang-related killings this year, many thought to be linked to the drugs trade.

Criminal gangs are increasingly using heavy duty weapons such as AK-47 assault rifles, thought to arrive in the city through its Mediterranean sea port.

Two murders earlier this month also saw an 18-year-old stabbed in the chest during a fight outside a nightclub and a 25-year-old man shot in his car by men on a motorbike.

The government has said it is sending in 130 extra riot police – who will be patrolling the city by the end of the month – as well as 24 more detectives.

But many residents of the southern city are critical of that response and say politicians are not doing enough.

“Today finished the soundbites and rhetoric … The city needs action!” says the petition.

“Or are we preparing to always call more police and army … then Batman!”

The petition calls for a more inclusive approach involving Marseille community groups and the government working around a “common vision”.

Marseille, a European Capital of Culture for 2013, has high unemployment and levels of poverty, with critics saying the large immigrant population has been marginalised and alienated.

[adrotate group=”14″]