Marseille Calling: The French have not celebrated the title yet

Another city will share the European Capital of Culture 2013 (ECC) title with Košice -the French city of Marseille. Based on the up-to-date information, the composition of the French team has not changed. Since they worked under immense pressure, and experienced due stress before the results were announced, the team was naturally overjoyed to have won. After they savored victory, they eased up to get ready for the phase awaiting them, which would be much longer and much more challenging.

What were the reactions of Marseille citizens after obtaining the title?

This question is quite difficult to answer, as Marseille-Provence is a vast territory with 2.2 millions inhabitants involved. It would be very pretentious to pretend that every single citizen had a reaction! If we can measure something, it is the awareness of
a vast majority that Marseille was again in the race for being the important European City it deserves.

What was the reaction of French media during the competition and after the victory of your city?

As usual, we must separate national media and regional ones. During the competition, the national press tried to publish a number of articles to compare the four cities still in the race (Lyon, Toulouse, Bordeaux and Marseille-Provence). These articles were mainly portraits of cities mixing economy, social, political and cultural issues. Mareille-Provence was generally seen as an important bid. Regarding the regional press, it was, of course, very supportive, specially the days before the visit of the Delegation of the jury. After the victory, national press was quite discreet when the regional press was publishing a massive volume of articles during the three days following the result.

Are you planning to celebrate?

No

When will you visit Košice to discuss future cooperation?

We met the Košice team at the end of last year and decided to come around May after the European Council of Ministers would have nominated officially our two Cities.

(mr)