While GTA 6 City of the Week looks at one location in the USA and evaluates it as a possible setting of the next installment in Rockstar Game's popular open-world action adventure franchise every week, Foreign City of the Week, as the name suggests, looks beyond the borders.
Hopping back to Europe after last week's vacation in the Caribbean to break things up in between the other cities of the archipelago, we're taking a trip to the southern coast of France for even more sunshine. Let's see how well GTA integrates with the land of Liberty, Equality and Fraternity.
Marseille
The second largest city of the country, Marseille, anchors the third largest metropolitan area of the country. Oddly enough, Lyon, the third largest city of France happens to anchor the country's second largest metropolitan area. The city, oft written as "Marseilles" in english, is home to nearly a million souls, and is the largest French city on the coast of the mediterranean sea.
Throughout history, Marseille — or "Massalia" during the Greek and Roman periods — was an important port, and it still is. While we mentioned the Greek Antiquity, the area where current Marseille presides has been inhabited by humans long before that era as well. Signs of human habitation reaching all the way back to 30,000 BC have been found in the area.
Marseille was hit pretty hard during World War 2. Most of the city's historic architecture was demolished by bombings, however some of it survived and was restored during the rebuilding efforts in the 1950's. Due to the great economic importance of the city, as well as the reparations paid to the city by the former belligerents, Marseille had more than enough capital to not only regain its former glory, but to expand further.
Marseille's importance as a port brought in not only goods, but it also attracted immigrants, mainly from Algeria, leading to the designation of a French-African district in the city that has become a well known and oft visited area. This, and other various districts throughout the city offer a varied environment to traverse.
Understandably, the economy of Marseille is mainly based on the port. Historically it serves as "the" port of the French Empire, connecting the colonies with the mainland. Though the original harbor, now called the Old Port, was overtaken by Port de la Joliette, it is still a staple of the city.
While the Old Port is now a private marina mixed with tourist attraction, the new port is not only the busiest in all of France, but the fifth busiest in Europe as a whole. Over 100 million tonnes of cargo and goods pass through the new port annually.
That said, freight isn't the only major pillar of the economy. Coming hand-in-hand with a major port are the industries of shipbuilding and fishing. One of the city's main tourist attractions is the daily fish market, however the main buyers are still the locals, driving the food economy.
Recently, Marseille has began to rise in other fields as well. Countless startups have recently popped up across the city, with IT being prominent. With more than 90% of the several thousand of companies have fewer than 500 employees, with most of them only licking the lower ends of even that criteria.
