Draft:Manufacture des Tabacs de Marseille

• Comment: Most of the History section is either unsourced or its source is unclear ABG (Talk/Report any mistakes here) 10:57, 1 January 2025 (UTC)

---

The Manufacture des Tabacs de Marseille (Tobacco manufactury in Marseille) is a group of buildings in the Belle de Mai district of Marseille's 3rd arrondissement, which once served as a tobacco factory. Today, it houses the “Friche Belle de Mai” cultural center, the Marseille municipal archives and a media center.

History

Tobacco factories in Marseille before 1861

In 1681, when the French minister of trade Colbert extended the monopoly on the sale of tobacco to its production and packaging, he created royal factories. In Marseille, a factory was set up near the Carmes déchaussés convent. At the time, tobacco was consumed in powder form for snuff, in pieces for chewing or grated for pipe smoking. During the French Revolution, the law of March 27, 1791 made tobacco cultivation, manufacture and trade free. It was during this short period of liberalization that tobacco plant cultivation spread and a multitude of private companies were created: Marseille became renowned for the manufacture of cigars, which were shipped all over France.

This liberalization was short-lived, however, as Napoleon I's decree of December 29, 1810 re-established the monopoly of the entire tobacco manufacturing chain. To help control production, sixteen factories were set up in the following cities: Paris, Lyon, Marseille, Strasbourg, Toulouse, Bordeaux, Lille, Le Havre, Nancy, Morlaix, Tonneins, Brussels, Cologne, Amsterdam, Rotterdam and Bremen. The Marseille site was chosen because the general administration wanted to take advantage of the favorable climate and the reputation of the Marseilles workers. The new factory was set up in Rue Sainte, near the Abbey of Saint-Victor, in dilapidated premises belonging to the mayor of Marseille, Antoine-Ignace Anthoine, a merchant shipowner.

Tobacco manufactory from 1861 to 1990

In 1861, the French government purchased a 26,000 m2 plot of land near the Gare Saint-Charles railway station (recently built in 1846) from the Compagnie anonyme des chemins de fer de Paris à Lyon et à la Méditerranée, to build a new tobacco factory.

Construction began in 1862, to plans by architect Désiré Michel, and was completed in 1868. It remained in operation until 1990, when it was closed. The 300 or so workers were either laid off or transferred to other factories in France (but the process of factory closures continued). The order-picking department was transferred to Vitrolles.

Present-day uses of the premises

The premises lay fallow for a number of years, before being rehabilitated (into two separate sites: Friche de la Belle de Mai, at no. 41 rue Jobin, and Pôle Média de la Belle de Mai, at no. 37 rue Guibal) and occupied by companies, associations focusing on the visual arts, as well as Marseille's municipal archives and the local offices of INA.