The stoppage of More beautiful life go “have repercussions in terms of tourism and the economy” in Marseille, explained Friday May 6 on franceinfo Jean-Luc Chauvin, president of the metropolitan CCI Aix-Marseille-Provence. After 18 years of broadcasting, France 3 stops this series which contributed to change the image of Marseilles and allowed the city to benefit from important repercussions.
franceinfo: Is the end of the series a blow for the city?
Jean-Luc Chauvin: Yes and on several levels. First of all for the cinema sector. We are the second location for filming in France with more than 1,700 days of filming, around 80 million euros in spin-offs. The series in place, it’s 600 jobs, a budget of 27 million euros, it’s almost 85,000 euros per episode. So yes, it’s a blow for a very developed series in the territory.
Beyond the cinema, will this have an impact on tourism?
This also counts in terms of economic benefits and influence, image, attractiveness. This series, everyone knows it in France, it has made it possible to put Marseille, Provence, forward in France and abroad. Many tourists who come to visit Marseille ask where the Mistral district is, where the bar is. This therefore has repercussions in terms of tourism and it affects, beyond the film industry, the entire economy of our city.
France Télévisions promises to invest in Marseille in the production of fiction with a similar annual budget. What do you think ?
It’s gonna be hard to replace More beautiful life, but there are other possibilities, other series. A plan has been put forward with “Marseille en grand”, the plan of the President of the Republic, to support the creative industry sector which is very important to us. This will of course provide opportunities. There will be a period of adaptation and lots of new projects that will be able to start.