8 minute read
Marseille
The capital of the Mediterranean?
The French president has grand plans for Marseille
Marseille is the second most populated city in France. Founded around 600 BC by
Greek settlers from Phoenicia , Marseille is the oldest city in the country, as well as one of Europe’s oldest continuously inhabited settlements. It is a place that has lived and breathed maritime trade for just about longer than anywhere else in the region. Over the past decade the city has transformed, retooled and repurposed for the challenges of the 21st century. Historically, the economy of Marseille was dominated by its role as a port of the French Empire, linking the North African colonies of Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia with Metropolitan France. The economy of Marseille and its region is still linked to its commercial port, the first French port and the fifth European port by cargo tonnage. Some 45,000 jobs are linked to the port activities and it represents €4bn added value to the regional economy. 100m tons of freight pass annually through the port, 60% of which is petroleum, making it number one in France and the Mediterranean and number three in Europe. Located near one of the biggest French rivers, the Rhône, the city is directly linked to the European hinterland by waterways and rail, and latterly its boxport has tried to position itself as an alternative to the busy north European terminals.
Marseille is also reinventing itself through the renovation of its neighbourhoods. President Emanuel Macron, one of the most famous supporters of the city’s football club, has made a great deal of his ambition to regenerate the city, setting aside billions of euros for the process last autumn with the provençal city a regular stop for him during this spring’s presidential election. The city’s grand rattrapage - or big catchup plan - officially called Marseille en grand - promises very significant investments in local schools and transport, particularly in northern districts.
There’s also an innovation component of the Marseille en grand plan. A call for initiatives was launched in December to create four entrepreneurship hubs in Marseille, which will be dedicated places where young people with projects will be trained, advised and mentored free of charge by business leaders, associations and supported by public services.
Macron has described the city as a “laboratory for the republic” - something that is definitely the case too for maritime with new fuels and shipping-related start-ups flourishing. Into his second term as president, Macron has vowed to make Marseille the “capital of the Mediterranean”. Like many great trading hubs, Marseille has had to reinvent itself every few generations. Its citizens find themselves in the crux of another transformation right now - carrying on its mercantile traditions while ensuring the municipality is a digital leader. The city’s mayor, Benoît Payan, could leave a more widespread maritime legacy as it is he has led the charge to speed up the creation of a Mediterranean emissions control area (ECA), something that would become the largest maritime zone in the world regulating polluting emissions.
Marseille has also recently been selected as one of 100 European cities to participate in a European Union project whose objective is climate neutrality by 2030. Marseille and the other 99 cities must become laboratories for experimentation and innovation to enable all European cities to achieve this objective by 2050 with Payan saying many resources will be spent to ensure the port becomes greener while freight moving through the city will increasingly be carried on electric vehicles.
Visiting?
∙ STAY La Residence Du Vieux Port ∙ EAT Chez Fonfon ∙ DRINK Carry Nation ∙ VISIT Basilique Notre-Dame-de-la Garde
Looking north
The Grand Port Maritime de Marseille-Fos bounced back in very solid fashion last year - it now wants to take cargo away from some of the big names up north. Last year, Marseille-Fos, France’s top port, handled 75m tonnes of cargo including 1.5m teu of containers of which 218,000 teu were moved by rail. “The port of Marseille-Fos is becoming more than ever the southern gateway of Europe, conquering its hinterland,” said Elisabeth Ayrault, president of the port’s supervisory board while unveiling the 2021 results. The port, she said, is positioning itself as the bridgehead of the axis linking the Mediterranean with the Rhône and Saône rivers with ever greater rail links. “The opportunities offered by this vision of a major axis are vast, both in the fields of containers and logistics, as well as in industry and the energy and digital transitions,” Ayrault added. Marseille’s largest and best-known shipping line, CMA CGM, launched in January two rail services between Duisburg in Germany and Marseille-Fos. “This service offers an alternative to the North European ports and proposes to our customers a more environmentally friendly mode of transportation,” a spokesperson for the liner firm tells Splash. This is part of a wider push by the local port community to take advantage of the environmental transition to allow the port to capture maritime flows that currently pass through to the north by transferring them to rail or barge. “Serving northern Europe from Asia represents five more days at sea at a time when fuel prices are very high,” points out Alain Mistre, the president of the local Maritime and Fluvial Union (UMF). As befits a top global port in the 2020s, Marseille-Fos is helping lead the way when it comes to shipping’s transition to alternative fuels. The port is working with Paris-headquartered H2V to establish a new industrial facility to produce green hydrogen. Costing around €750m, the development of this production plant aims to help decarbonise operations in the Fos industrial port area. During development, six hydrogen production units of around 600 MW will be built between 2026 and 2031 on a 36 ha site. The port is one of the world’s top LNG bunkering hubs, thanks in no small part to CMA CGM as a top client and its supplier French energy major TotalEnergies. The aim now is to develop greener versions of this fuel. The first French project to produce liquefied biomethane, a low-carbon non-fossil fuel, was launched at the port last year. The project converts the biodegradable part of household waste from the Marseille Provence region into fuel that will go on CMA CGM’s ships. CMA CGM has also recently joined an industrial demonstrator project that aims to produce green hydrogen from renewable power and also e-methane, a synthetic gas using hydrogen and CO2 captured from the industrial process. Piloted by the French natural gas transmission system operator, GRTgaz, the Jupiter 1000 project in Fos-sur-Mer is intended to provide solutions to the challenge of decarbonising gas networks and the intermittent nature of renewable energy. The idea is to convert a portion of renewable power, at times when it is abundant, into hydrogen and e-methane so it can be stored on a large scale and for lengthy periods. Beyond producing hydrogen, Jupiter 1000 also recycles CO2 by converting it into synthetic gas in a methanation unit.
Hitting accelerate
France’s second city is a major digital data hub
Few cities in Europe have more startup incubators than Marseille, a place that is increasingly seen as among the most tech-savvy in France. Accélérateur M, Incubateur Belle de
Mai, Le Carburateur, Marseille Innovation and NetAngels are some of the names generating a tech buzz in the city.
Also among the notable accelerators is
ZEBOX, created in 2018 by the city’s bestknown shipping line, CMA CGM. In less than four years, ZEBOX has supported more than 55 start-ups, building successful businesses that have raised tens of millions of dollars and created scores of new high-skilled jobs. “ZEBOX accelerates digitalisation, automation, and sustainability by harnessing new technologies including
AI, IoT, Big Data, and robotics,” a spokesperson for CMA CGM tells Splash.
In order to accelerate the development of innovation, CMA CGM also launched March TANGRAM. TANGRAM, which takes its name from a Chinese puzzle that requires creativity and deep thinking, is a new place of collaboration built around two major challenges—developing skills and accelerating innovation. The project is all about harnessing collective intelligence, bringing skills together and looking ahead to the world of the future. All of the group’s employees around the world will be given access to training while an apprentice training center has also been created to meet the need for professionals in high-demand areas and to train people for the jobs of the future. Another notable developer of maritime solutions is the French Smart Port in Med platform, created by the regional government, the port, the local chamber of commerce and Aix Marseille University. The platform has annual challenges and has helped nurture many start-ups. The port has positioned itself as a digital data hub with the creation of new sectors in the digital economy to generate value and new sources of jobs: data centers, submarine cables, new services linked to the deployment of 5G, artificial intelligence, blockchain and smart port data.
Among homegrown tech talent there is Ci5, a cargo flow management system developed by Marseille Gyptis International, in which the port is a shareholder. There’s also the CO2 calculator developed by Searoutes in partnership with the port. It calculates the environmental footprint of a ship’s route as well as offering the possibility of comparing the carbon footprint of different routes for a given journey with the option of selecting different port transit points and modes of transport. The port is also assisting a variety of companies in carrying out a variety of landmark blockchain trials.
