Government plans to create a new “inland” port between Marseille and Lyon have been given a boost.
Shipping firm CMA CGM has said it will invest €40million to boost goods transported along the Rhône.
By creating what CMA CMG calls a river autoroute, it is hoped the amount of maritime traffic will double by 2032.
In 2023, barges transported four million tonnes of goods, between 3% and 5% of all commercial transport between Lyon and Marseille, but authorities say it should be easy to increase that amount to between 10% and 15% reasonably easily, and without major infrastructure such as new canals being needed.
Emissions reduction
The idea of a Grand Port Marseille-Lyon was promoted by President Macron in late 2022, as a way of reducing pollution.
One river barge can take a load equivalent to that carried by 110 lorries, reducing the fuel used and hence carbon dioxide emissions by 80%.
But a barge takes two or three days to travel the distance, due to the number of locks which have to be navigated, while a lorry usually takes between two and three hours.
“We will never be as quick as a lorry, but we can be much cheaper,” said Romain Maillot, who is in charge of the project.
“Having CMA CMG means they will not just do the handling of the goods – as a shipping firm they can take charge of cargoes from their point of departure to their arrival, doing away with many intermediaries.”
Chemicals, grain and building materials are likely to be the main cargoes.
Read more: People in Paris to have their Ikea orders transported by boat on Seine
Import and export issues
Difficulties in expanding to consumer goods were shown by a bid in 2023 by a private company to transport wine, fruit and cheese along the Saône, which joins the Rhône at Lyon.
Restaurants and shops were initially enthusiastic, but then complained that driving to the port to collect the goods took nearly as long as having a van deliver them door-to-door.
The Grand Port Marseille-Lyon is similar to the Haropa port, which links Le Havre, Rouen and Paris.
Developed since 2009, Haropa has had a number of difficulties and has not yet met the objectives set out at the beginning.
Haropa is based on the idea that importers and exporters will be able to book in their containers in Paris, or along a number of points on the Seine, and they will then be shipped on with no further trouble through the sea ports to their destination.
One of the key aims of Haropa was to reduce the carbon footprint of freight travel, but it ran into opposition from local conservation groups.
Last November, Haropa said it was abandoning plans to build an additional industrial port at Triel on the Seine in Yvelines, to the west of Paris.
Dubbed an “eco-port”, it was initially planned to specialise in the importation of sawn wood for house-building in the Paris region, before the idea expanded to include a recycling centre.
Read more: French eco-friendly cargo sailboats to set sail by 2026
Port plan abandoned
But local residents feared it would increase lorry traffic in the area and pointed out that the site, next to an existing pleasure boat port, had, like most of the Seine banks, been classified as a place of special interest for flora, fauna and ecology.
They took the matter to court, winning the first hearing, losing on appeal, and planned to take Haropa to the country’s highest court. This was abandoned when the port plan was scrapped.
More recently, there have been fears raised about the safety of swimmers in the Seine, following the Olympic games clean-up, with commercial barges still using the river.
One of the success stories from Haropa was the decision by Ikea to use its facilities to supply all of its stores in Paris and the surrounding area using water transport.
Haropa was also a key factor in attracting investors building recycling facilities at Gennevilliers and Port Jérome on the Seine.
In November 2024, three new industrial sites were announced for Le Havre, with the Haropa port cited as one of the factors for choosing the city.
Meanwhile, Rouen, which has specialised in cereal exports, exported a near-record nine million tonnes of cereal in 2022, as other European countries sought alternatives to Black Sea ports affected by the Ukrainian war. The higher volumes have been maintained since then.
Oil and gas imports to Le Havre were another strong area, but container traffic to Haropa fell, illustrating how hard it is for smaller ports to compete against the giant container ports of Rotterdam, Hamburg and Antwerp.
Environmental benefits are taking their time too – in 2022, 85% of containers from the sea ports left by road, instead of river and road, compared to 86% in 2021.
President Macron used a visit to Alicante in Spain to push for the Marseille-Lyon port to be developed, especially for energy. His visit to Spain was for the launch of an undersea gas pipeline for green hydrogen between Alicante and Marseille.
The pipeline project is strongly supported by Germany, seeking ways to wean itself off Russian oil and gas, and Mr Macron said the inland port, along the Rhône valley to the chemical factories near Lyon, would also be a natural link with Germany and its industrial heartland.
