Marseilles

Founded about 600 b.c.e., Marseilles began to flourish in the eleventh century as a staging port for the Crusades, and it prospered until devastated by the plague in 1348. Its merchant oligarchy operated it as an autonomous republic until it swore allegiance to France in 1481. Recognizing the city's strategic importance in the Mediterranean, Francis I (1494–1547) protected its commerce by strengthening its fortifications. It still maintained some autonomy within Provence and France, but failed in its effort to become an independent republic in 1591 to 1595, when it resisted the Protestant Henry IV (1553–1610). Its commerce exploited the West Indian sugar trade and reached beyond to Latin America, and into the Pacific and Indian Oceans, fueling the city's growth in the seventeenth century. Established in 1599, its chamber of commerce is the oldest in France. In 1660 Louis XIV (1638–1715) imposed greater royal authority over the city, but its trade continued to grow until another plague in 1720 reduced the city's population by half. Its trade brought rapid recovery, however, and by 1765 the population had returned to 1720 levels.

Marseilles supported enthusiastically the French Revolution, but the blockade against Napoleon Bonaparte damaged its commerce, causing it to welcome the 1814 Bourbon restoration. Marseilles's traditional republicanism rekindled later against Napoleon III (1808–1873). Its trade grew rapidly in the nineteenth century as it became the leading port of embarkation for French colonists departing to Algeria and the Far East, and for workers bound for the developing Suez Canal (completed in 1869). Construction of new ship channels and artificial ports beyond its Old Port began in 1853. In addition to its famous olive-oil soaps, sugar and tobacco were staples of Marseilles's foreign trade. Near the mouth of the Rhône River in a rich wine-producing region (Côtes de Provence), Marseilles served the hinterland of France and Europe through a network of railways and canals. It also became the point of immigration from North Africa and elsewhere, contributing to a multiracial population that sometimes led to ethnic conflict in Marseilles, with concomitant high unemployment and poverty as its population reached 500,000 by 1900.

In the twentieth century, declining French colonialism diminished Marseilles's role as a colonial financial and trade center. World War II was also hard on the city, as the Italians bombarded it in 1940 and the Germans destroyed the historic Old Port sections in 1942 to 1943, followed by heavy Anglo-American bombing and destruction during the city's liberation in 1944. Loss of colonies and the closing of the Suez Canal further hurt Marseilles, but under its socialist mayor, Gaston Defferre, in 1953 to 1986 it once more became a major port and industrial center. Petroleum refining and petrochemicals were especially important to Marseilles and its outports at Lavéra (which is able to receive large oil tankers) and Fos-sur-Mer, which are under the authority of the Autonomous Port of Marseilles. Traffic through this port complex exceeds 90 million tons annually, with heavy imports of crude oil, natural gas, and raw materials for the steel and aluminum industries. Major exports include refined petroleum products, chemicals, and steel, with containerized shipping of general merchandise growing rapidly, as Marseilles has become Europe's second-busiest port in the twenty-first century.

SEE ALSO Agriculture; Bordeaux; Cargoes, Freight; Cargoes, Passenger; Chambers of Commerce; Containerization; Drugs, Illicit; Empire, French; France; Free Ports; Harbors;La Rochelle;Mediterranean;Nantes;Paris;Port Cities.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Busquet, Raoul, and Vautravers, Constant. Histoire de Marseille. Marseilles: Jeanne Laffitte, 1998.

Caron, François. An Economic History of Modern France, trans. Barbara Bray. New York: Columbia University Press, 1979.

Pinchemel, Philippe. France: A Geographical, Social, and Economic Survey, trans. Dorothy and T. H. Elkins. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1987.

Rambert, Gaston, ed. Histoire du commerce de Marseilles, 7 vols. Marseille: Chambre de commerce et d'industrie, and Paris: Plon, 1949–1966.

Ralph Lee Woodward Jr.