“The Mediterranean is slowly dying but the giant
cruise lobbyists
want to continue to sully it.
In
Marseille
whether they like it or not we will continue to fight
.
Benoit Payan seems all but determined to bury the hatchet after his controversial petition.
The elected Marseille official reiterated, in a tweet, this Tuesday, August 2, the remarks made two weeks earlier.
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On July 21, the mayor of Marseille (elected in 2020 under the label Le Printemps marseillais, a left-wing alliance) published a text on the city's official website entitled "Stop maritime pollution in the Mediterranean".
He regretted the
“levels of pollution in the port cities [which are] no longer acceptable”
and castigated the
“cruise ships which dirty, which spit their smoke on our shores with complete impunity”.
"These boats are floating cities that continue to discharge as much pollution as a million cars," said the elected official, calling for "
strict and ambitious
" international standards
to be put in place.
And, in the first place, that the prefect prohibits the
"most polluting boats"
stopover in the second largest city in France during pollution peaks.
Read alsoIn Marseille, cruises are no longer fun at all
The Smoke of Discord
To understand this request, we must go back a little.
In 2018, in France's second city, emissions of nitrogen oxides of maritime origin - 20% of which are due to cruise ships - exceeded road emissions for the first time, according to the regional quality observatory. air AtmoSud.
In 2019, 1.8 million passengers meet in the leading French port in this area, which recorded 497 stopovers, according to figures from the Marseille Provence Cruise Club.
If the previous municipality supported the activity of cruise passengers, everything changes in 2020 with the new town hall.
Who begins his term of office by lowering the annual subsidy of several tens of thousands of euros granted to the powerful Marseille cruise club, "
a cenacle where lobbies had pride of place”
, according to Laurent Lhardit, the Marseille deputy in charge of tourism.
The following year, the town hall simply canceled its membership for “disagreement on the tourist strategy”.
One would think that confinement, and the general cessation of cruises, would have calmed things down. It is the opposite: disastrous in terms of images for the giants of the seas, the epidemic has not been neutral in terms pollution.
According to Atmosud, the impact of the boats, stuck at the dock but forced to maintain their electrical activity for the crew on board, was catastrophic.
In June 2022, tension is at its height in Marseille when two giants of the seas, the
Wonder of the Seas
and the
MSC Orchestra
try to access the port.
Activists in canoes from the Stop Cruises collective blocked their entrance.
They explain their gesture in a Twitter thread, where they denounce "deadly leisure" and not so profitable for the local economy as what the
An opinion shared by Laurent Lhardit, who regrets to the correspondent of
Le Figaro
:
“meager economic benefits, because the stopovers are too short and most cruise passengers stay on board.
The Marseille stage must stop being considered by shipowners as a balcony with an unobstructed view of the city.”
The Smoke of Discord
The straw that made the Mediterranean overflow?
On July 18, when the city was placed on alert 2 for ozone pollution, a thick cloud escaped from the
Valiant Lady
, a cruise ship at the dock, as our correspondent tells us.
Black smoke emanates from its
scrubber,
this filter placed in the chimneys of ships which makes it possible to reduce sulfur emissions but also involves the discharge of washing water into the coast.
For this reason, using them in a port and within a limit of 3 nautical miles has also been prohibited by French law since January 1, 2022.
As Pierre Saint-Gilles du
Figaro
explains , quoting Jean-François Suhas, the president of the Port of Marseille Fos Development Council, the ship would have knowingly chosen to activate this mechanism that day despite the mayor's recriminations.
The image of this black cloud while the city was suffocating shocked the Marseillais and threw oil on an already burning fire.
Sulfur reduction and connection of ships to dock
But then what does the mayor of Marseille want?
In his letter, he calls on the International Maritime Organization (IMO), the UN body in charge of maritime transport and the management of pollution at sea, to take new measures to reduce sulfur emissions from ships. cruising.
Remember that the UN authority created in June in the Mediterranean a SECA zone (“sulphur oxide emission control zone”) where a maximum sulfur content for fuels is imposed.
Not enough for the city councilor, who wants a second zone, called ECA, to be created, for strict regulation of the rest of polluting emissions and in particular nitrogen oxides.
Under study since September 2020, the measure is supposed to be implemented by 2025. Too late, judge Benoit Payan.
Since its publication, its tribune has collected 48,000 signatures and aroused many reactions in the camp of cruise passengers.
On the form, first, Erminio Eschena, the president of the CLIA, being surprised for example at our colleagues from
Tour Mag
of a mayor "starting a petition" rather than taking action.
On the merits above all, the sector highlighting the efforts made in recent years.
Local actors in the sector such as the Grand Port maritime de Marseille, the public establishment which manages and operates the port, immediately sent a letter to the town hall to remind it of the actions already undertaken: the acquisition of drones allowing to distinguish the most polluting ships and a project to electrically connect ships at the quay in order to cover all their vital energy needs, as is already the case in other European ports such as Southampton.
This project, entitled “Zero smoke stopover”, would make it possible to avoid running the engines when the ships are at the quay.
In the face of criticism, the rapidly changing sector is striving to do better.
In particular by building new boats, with "clean" fuel such as liquefied natural gas (see our article on the latest Costa).
To improve its relations with local residents, the Port of Marseille also launched “City-Port Dialogues” in 2019. What can buy social peace in Marseille?
On a visit at the end of July, the Minister of Transport Clément Beaune took a calm posture: "
I do not want to oppose the activities: we can reconcile development with an ecological requirement which will be greater in the years to come
".
