What is the port identity of contemporary Marseille? Some thoughts on a compulsory historiographical figure – Fabien Bartolotti et Céline Regnard

Since the 19th century, Marseille has been associated with a range of narratives that have shaped powerful imaginaries and been embedded in historiographical traditions. The “Gateway to the Orient”, the “Capital of the French Colonial Empire”, the “Cosmopolitan City” and the “Euro-Mediterranean Metropolis” are just some of the expressions loaded with contradictory and evolving identities that constantly refer to the city’s port trajectory. The real common denominator of these discourses is the port itself, presented in linear terms of “rise/prosperity/decline” and through the prism of the iconic trades of maritime life. Based on a review of the scientific literature and on recent research projects in economic and social history, this article looks beyond these narratives, not to make a clean sweep of them, but to make their reading more complex and to add nuance to their significance.