Nicole Girard

 

In October 1971, Fos was no longer just a project put a reality: the port had been in service since 1968, with its three docks and spectacular watch tower, the Esso refinery and the southern European pipe-line are working and the construction of the various plants has begun. This news item shows all of this.

There are various aims: to build a southern Euro-port on the shores of the Mediterranean which will becapable of competing with the northern Euro-port in Rotterdam. But the northern Euro-port is a vast industrial zone, densely populated and urbanised, stretching from the North Sea to Basle, in other words a Europe based along the Rhine, which the report's maps show us as a delta, a triangle. The image is transposed to the area round Marseille, not a perfect comparison since the traffic through Marseille's port is less than Rotterdam's and the country behind it is smaller, only recently begun to be industrialised. But the wishful thinking is typical of the times. It is very common, in official circles (the region's prefect called it "an economic earthquake for the French south-east") and among economic leaders (illustrated by the creation of Pierre Terrin's Grand Delta Association, an industrialist specialising in ship repair). The European swing towards the Mediterranean is a wish, but in the context is a very powerful uniting factor. The news items does not mention the initial and fundamental aims of the state in this operation -- there were three. First of all to sort out a region that is economically depressed – the political and financial elites are fully aware of the economic and social crisis which the de-industrialisation of Marseille had brought about, the port's enormous difficulties, France's 2nd city's decline and loss of power. Secondly comes the challenge to industrialise the French Mediterranean with an industry-based port zone, an example of new conditions of industrial location (the so-called coastal development, a world-wide phenomenon), combining a large sea port with zones of heavy industry linked to the region behind by high capacity and modern lines of communication. Finally, the decision to install a steel-making plant would give the state the chance to get a handle on the country's steel crisis (the restructuring in this sector decided at a European level began in the 1960's) and convince De Wendel, the steel-making group from Lorraine, to moldernise its production in a coastal plant which would be an off-shoot of the Usinor plant in Dunkirk, built a few years earlier. Using maps to explain, the film shows the major industrial plants on the Crau shingle, principal geological base of this large sedimentary plain. Hard and compact, it is a perfect foundation for industrial buildings. With hindsight, we should moderate the news report's optimism as far as the hoped for snowballing effect is concerned. Light transforming industries, at the  time considered "industrialising industries", bringing jobs, which the news report's maps dot around the heavy industry sectors (where there are the major steel and chemical groups) never arrived. The industrial zones situated in the department's towns, which the news report presents as complimentary to Fos, arrived much earlier and were subject to quite another economic logic. The immense zone of Fos, as big as Paris, never in fact filled up. One should correct one thing: the oil-fired power station built by EDF to supply the energy needs of the Fos area and beyond was not built on the zone itself, but at Ponteau in the commune of Martigues, near the oil complex of Lavéra.

"The biggest site in Europe" also concerns urbanisation, with housing and all the administration necessary for a population that officals hoped would be huge (they spoke in terms of doubling the population). There was an over-optimistic assessment of how many jobs would be created. The financial and institutional aspects of the programme were fixed by CIAT (Comité Interministériel d'Aménagement du Territoire) in Otober 1971. The creation of new towns would lead to an unprecedented conflict between the state and the local administrations. The commentary says not a word about this, nor is it precise about the state's financial commitment, which had already financed the port and was getting ready to finance industry by offering very advantageous conditions for the construction of the steel plant. For it would have to support -- with the local towns --  the cost of urbanisation

 

Bibliography

Xavier Daumalin, Nicole Girard, Olivier Raveux, Du savon à la puce ; l'industrie marseillaise du XVIIIe siècle à nos jours. Marseille, Éditions Jeanne Laffitte, 2003.

Didier Cultiaux, (1975), "L'aménagement de la Région Fos-Étang de Berre", Notes et Etudes documentaires, Paris, La Documentation Française, n° 4164-4166, 1975.

Bernard Paillard, et Claude Fischler, La damnation de Fos, Paris, Le Seuil, 1981.