A little history of the district
The Cours Julien originally had a completely different function, as it was the belly of Marseille, the wholesale and retail market for fruits and vegetables, from about 1860 to 1970. The Cours Julien and the district of La Plaine were the main trading places for fruits and vegetables in Marseille. Farmers from surrounding towns and villages such as Plan-de-Cuques, Château-Gombert, La Pomme, Mazargues and Bonneveine unloaded their produce on the Cours Julien in the wholesalers’ warehouses and in the open air. The market was held along the Cours, enlivened by the lively voices of the ‘Partisanes’ (semi-wholesalers) whose voices are still very present in the memory of the people of Marseille.
Around 1960, in order to relieve the congestion in the city centre and the Cours Julien, the City of Marseille decided to group together all the fruit and vegetable wholesale activities on a single site, in the Arnavaux district. In the 1960s, the Marseille municipality planned to bring together all the fruit and vegetable activities on a single site, to free up space in the city centre and the Cours Julien.
In 1963, it created a semi-public company, SOMIMAR, to establish and manage a National Interest Market (MIN) in the Arnavaux district (14th arrondissement). The Cours Julien market moved there in March 1972.
