Bosses call on the State to commit to the transition of the Fos industrial zone

Fos, a huge industrial zone north of Marseille, where the Grand Port Maritime (GPMM) and petrochemical and steel industries are located, is the second most polluting industrial site in France, with 17% of the country's industrial greenhouse gas emissions - responsible for global warming.

It was designated in early 2023 by the government to become one of the first "low-carbon industrial zones" in the country, along with that of Dunkirk.

And "31 industrial development and transformation projects representing a total of nearly 20 billion euros of investment have been announced" in the Marseille region for the coming years, underlines the collective "Provence, fabrique des possibles" which brings together under the aegis of professional organizations all the bosses concerned, including Luc Rémont, CEO of EDF, Eric Trappier, CEO of Dassault Aviation, and Rodolphe Saadé of the shipping company CMA-CGM.

The key, according to the promoters of the initiative, is the creation in a decade of 10.000 direct jobs and four times more indirect jobs. But on condition that the infrastructure follows.

The main concern is the electricity supply, with the projects mentioned requiring a doubling of current consumption in terms of power, according to the public authorities. A project for a very high voltage line linking Gard to Fos, crossing in particular part of the Camargue natural park, is arousing strong local opposition.

Without commenting on the substance of this latest project, Jean-Michel Diaz of the Fos Industrial Maritime Group stressed at a press conference in Marseille that "project leaders will not wait, we must quickly provide them with guarantees". "We must not miss this turn because the competition is European and global" to attract new industrial projects, he insisted.

To manage and coordinate all these projects, the call calls for the creation of a unified structure, beyond the recently appointed delegated commissioner for industrial, ecological and energy transition in the Fos-Berre zone.

"This governance must be supported by the State," insists Christine Baze, President of Industries Méditerranée. "It is the foundation that guarantees both territorial coherence and the link with the actions of the State. And this governance must integrate all the stakeholders in our territory, whether they are industrialists, communities, developers."

Isn't such a call paradoxical in the midst of a period of budgetary savings? No, replies Pascal Kuhn, president of the UIMM (metallurgy employers' union) Alpes Méditerranée, for whom "it is precisely now that we must invest to create future wealth in salaries, taxes and contributions. Otherwise we accept industrial downgrading and job losses."

The projects currently under development, on 700 hectares of GPMM land and around the Berre pond, range from Gravithy (production of pre-reduced iron based on hydrogen for the steel industry) in Fos-sur-Mer to the Deos floating wind project, also off the coast of Fos, via that of Elyse Energie to produce e-fuels or the production of photovoltaic panels (Carbon).