In the port city of Marseille in the south of France, a local artist is leading tours that shed light on the city's colonial past – a history little known today.
One morning on Marseille’s main shopping street, Rue Saint-Ferréol, a group of around 20 people gathered around the artist Mariam Benbakkar for what she calls a "colonial downtown walk".
This neighbourhood, with its grand, imposing buildings, was constructed in 1848, when, after 20 years of war, Algeria was divided into three French departments.
"All the resources exploited in Algeria, but also in other colonies, arrived through the port of Marseille. This neighbourhood became a showcase for ship owners," explains Benbakkar.
She passes around a photo book ... Marseille, the first city to organise a colonial exhibition in 1906 ... Marseille and its colonial museum ... Marseille, the "gateway to the Orient".
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'History made invisible'
Colonial history remains almost hidden in the city of Marseille. A small stained-glass window with a ship here, a faded pediment there – but no plaques or explanations.
Benbakkar leads the small group into the flamboyant Uniqlo store, whose dome is as high as that of the prefecture.
The reason for the building's grandeur? It used to be a branch of the Compagnie Algérienne, a French investment bank with operations in Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia and Lebanon.
The letters C and A embedded in the wrought iron railings, and a heavy armoured door in the fitting rooms provide clues to the building's past, but this isn't explicitly acknowledged.
"There used to be a magnificent painted ceiling, showing the colonised cities, but it was covered up by Uniqlo’s air conditioning," Benbakkar told RFI.
"This is knowledge that has been made completely invisible," notes Anne, one of the participants on the tour. Despite having grown up in these streets, she admits: "I know little about the hidden stories behind these buildings."
For Pauline, another young woman in the group, the tour is an opportunity to reflect on France's colonial past. "I’m not from an immigrant background, but I still feel it concerns me," she says.
For Benbakkar, everyone has, in one way or another, a personal history with the French colonies.
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She reminds people that she is neither a sociologist nor a historian, but she chooses to talk about the history of her city.
"For me, the best way of changing people's mentality is to pass it on through speaking about it, in the streets," she says.
She has been working with post-colonial imagery for several years, through her feminist collective Filles de Blédards ("Daughters of North African Immigrants") and her Instagram account Marseille Coloniale.
She says she iis fascinated by public spaces, architecture, land registries and private construction.
'These images affect us today'
"Marseille is a key city when it comes to France and migration. It has an extremely rich culture, but it’s not represented in cultural institutions," explains Benbakkar.
She mentions the names of forgotten industrialists and politicians: Jules Charles-Roux, a wealthy ship owner whose granddaughter married Marseille's mayor, Gaston Defferre; Édouard Marie Heckel, the founder of the colonial museum; Paulin Talabot, founder of the Paris-Lyon-Marseille railway and a lobbyist for the creation of the Suez Canal.
"There was a working bourgeoisie that made fortunes from the colonial empire. To this day, the redistribution of looted wealth is still not being done properly," she points out, referring to private enclaves in the city’s wealthy neighbourhoods.
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Another stop on the tour is the C&A store – formerly the Grand Hotel du Louvre et de la Paix. It features four massive statues representing four continents.
The figures representing Europe and the Americas, draped in togas, carry a winged machine symbolising progress, while Asia and Africa, bare-chested, carry an elephant and a camel.
"These images, which were installed in the 19th century, still affect us today. It’s as if the urban space has a subconscious – eventually, we internalise those images," says Benbakkar.
"We need reparations for the damage caused by 19th-century capitalism and imperialism, which still impacts the banking, economic and private property systems today. And for that, we need to recognise that we have been robbed of our common property and demand our fundamental rights: access to the sea, to nature, to decent housing, to streets for all."
This article was adapted from the original version in French.
