During pollution peaks, the Bouches-du-Rhône prefecture prohibits the most polluting cars from driving in the city center. Doing the same for boats would be a matter of social justice, according to Marseille Mayor Benoît Payan: “At a time when we ask the people of Marseille to make an effort, to change cars, to stop polluting, they will continue to see cruise ships that pollute with impunity. But what is fair in that? ?” An argument that the elected has developped in a video published Monday, July 25 on Twitter and titled “Marseille is suffocating”.
#MarseilleVillePlusVerte | You are already more than 25,000 to have signed the petition to say “stop maritime pollution”
In order to protect the Mediterranean and to act for the health of the people of Marseilles & the inhabitants of the Mediterranean rim, get involvedhttps://t.co/hw0MUPGT4f pic.twitter.com/k6xmplU0gH— City of Marseille (@marseille) July 22, 2022
The elected official does not have the power to impose his proposal: he therefore decided to challenge the State – owner of the port of Marseille – via an online petition: “It is also to ask the State to take its responsibilities that I want to engage with me the tens of thousands of Marseillaises and Marseillais who sign this petition for things to change.”
Alain Mistre, president of the Maritime Union of Marseille-Fos, says he is surprised by the mayor’s approach. He believes that professionals in the sector have made efforts to fight pollution: “All maritime transport players have long been committed to decarbonization and to reducing activity pollution, particularly in the Mediterranean.” Prohibiting the most polluting ships from dropping anchor in Marseille during pollution peaks seems unrealistic to him: “Maritime activity is governed by the International Maritime Organization”, he defends.
“If each state does something, each does what it wants, and we can’t do maritime transport.”
Alain Mistre, President of the Maritime Union of Marseille-Fosat franceinfo
However, the Stop Cruises collective would like to go even further. Stationed on canoes, its activists temporarily prevented two cruise ships from docking in Marseilles last month. Rémi is one of them: “We are asking more because here, indeed, we are focusing on on the one hand air pollution which is indeed one of the subjects linked to cruise ships but there are many, many others.”
“We are faced with an industry that we consider superfluous, continues the activist, and with fairly meager economic benefits in terms of the impacts. And we consider that it is permanently, in fact, that there is a problem with these boats, not only during pollution peaks. The collective would therefore like a total ban on cruise ships in Marseille.