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WorldCargo
FRANCE: PORT DEVELOPMENT
news
Calling time on French leave?
France‘s major seaports face a big
challenge. They are confronted,
After a difficult transition year, France’s newly-formed
like everybody else, with the glo-
Grands Ports Maritimes have to convince the world of
bal economic downturn, but they
also have to get to grips with the
shipping, and perhaps also themselves, that the new
new structures put in place by the
2008 port reform law. They have structures and work organisation principles will work
to prove their credibility to ship-
ping lines, their own port com- last year due to dockworkers’ strike actions. These were particu- cretionary, was hardest hit, with
munities and the wider public. strikes and other protests against larly acute in the second quarter, volume falling by 40%. (On the
And on top of that, most of the port reform agenda. as the deadline set by the Sarkozy plus side, imp/ex container traffic
them, including the two biggest, Container traffic in Le Havre, government for the reforms ap- was up by 6% and the share of rail
Marseilles-Fos and Le Havre, have for example, fell by 7% last year to proached. As one might expect, distribution is increasing again).
to try and recover the business lost 24.5 Mt (2.5M TEU) because of transhipment traffic, which is dis-
Hardest hit
Marseilles-Fos was even worse af-
fected. General cargo traffic over-
all fell by 12% to 15.2 Mt, with
container traffic slumping by 16%
to 8.4 Mt, or by 15% in unit terms
to 847,651 TEU. (In 2007, the
port had become a TEU million-
aire for the first time). Through-
put at Fos, which handles the key
east-west trades, finished 21%
worse on 568,203 TEU. Else-
where, Rouen saw container traf-
fic fall by 20% to 142,000 TEU.
Dunkirk, which has tradition-
Crucially crane drivers and maintenance teams have to be employees of the
ally enjoyed social peace, fared
companies that own and/or operate the cranes
better than in 2007 because of the Ports Maritimes (GPM) with a tri- is under moral pressure (but not
strikes in Le Havre. Maersk had partite management structure, legally obliged) to consider.
to reintroduce the weekly Far East comprising a Supervisory Board, The Management Boards are
string (AE10) it had withdrawn at a Management Board, and a De- leaner and smaller than the man-
the beginning of 2008, and sev- velopment Board. agements of the ports autonomes,
eral other mainhaul services were Although the size of the aimed at achieving faster decision
diverted to the port’s NFTI con- Boards depends roughly on the taking and greater responsiveness.
tainer terminal, operated by APM size of the port, the composition The Boards are led by a manag-
Terminals, during the year. is the same. The Supervisory ing director or CEO, who remains
Pressure from shippers, nota- Board is made up of national, re- a key state appointee.
bly the Auchan hypermarket gional and local government rep- The institutional reforms are
chain, also played a part in per- resentatives; the Management supposed to underpin the funda-
suading Maersk to resume AE10 Board is the port management; mental changes to working prac-
calls, as it had lost local business and the development Board is tice that had simply become una-
to CMA CGM’s FAL-3 service. made up of the port community voidable given the scale of private
NFTI also benefited from re- (including employers’ and work- sector investment in new and ex-
covery in Antilles’ banana harvests. ers’ representatives), regional and panded port facilities, particularly
In total container traffic increased local authorities, and “persons of regarding the employment status
by 9% last year to 215,000 TEU, expertise”). Experts are also ap- of crane drivers and crane main-
although of course the outlook for pointed to the Supervisory Board. tenance technicians, as well as key
this year is uncertain. For example, in the case of Le workers in liquid bulk facilities
The port has forecast a fall in Havre, the experts sitting on the and passenger/cruise terminals.
iron ore imports this year, due to first Supervisory Board are Jean- In essence, all GPMs must
reduced demand from Arcelor- Louis Cambon (Michelin Tyre), tread the path adopted years ago
Mittal, which has cut back steel Vianney de Chalus (Le Havre by Dunkirk in the shape of
production in response to down- CCI), Gilles Fournier (CEO of Norvrac and NFTI, concessions
turn in automobile production. Fouré Lagadec et Cie), Christian with their own dedicated
Leroux (UMEP) and Hubert du workforces. The port authority
New structures Mesnil (Réseau Ferré de France). took a back seat as a minority
The seven leading seaports are still shareholder (just 9% in the case
part of the national patrimony, as Surveillance of NFTI) and adopted a landlord
public administrative institutions As GPM du Havre explains, the role. The question is whether, as a
of strategic importance, but they Supervisory Board decides on GPM, the port has to retreat com-
are no longer unitary structures. strategic policies and exercises pletely from the companies.
Pursuant to La No. 2008-660 (4 permanent control over the port’s
July 2008), they are no longer management. The Development Not easy
Gaullist ports autonomes, but Grands Board is an advisory body, which There are no illusions about how
has a right to be consulted on the difficult it will be to make the na-
GPM’s strategic projects and pric- tional reforms stick. Patrick Daher,
ing policies and it can issue pro- the first chairman of the Supervi-
posals that the Supervisory Board sory Board of GPM de Marseille-
Think ships, Bordeaux
urges wine shippers
The Port of Bordeaux - the com- make savings if they rely more on
mercial name for GPM de Bor- feedering over their own local
deaux-Le Verdon that took over port. But in addition there is an
from the former port autonome environmetnal pay-off. Bordeaux
last October - is urging Bordeaux viticulture is estimated to gener-
wine shippers and traders to take ate 200,000 tpa of CO emissions,
2
a closer look at feeder and shortsea equivalent to a town of 85,000
shipping services. inhabitants, but this could be
The Bordeaux region accounts slashed if reliance on long-distance
for 0.4 mtpa of deepsea wine ex- road haulage were cut.
ports, of which seafreight accounts For the record, despite the so-
for just 15% (60,000 tpa), or 5000 cial troubles associated with the
TEU - all feedered to Le Havre, reform Bill, the port’s overall traf-
either from Bassens by CMA fic grew by 8.4% to 9 Mt. Con-
CGM and from Le Verdon by tainer traffic topped 0.6 Mt
MSC. The rest is shipped by road, (55,000 TEU), down on the 2007
mainly to Antwerp. record, but still more than at any
The port’s view is that neither time prior to that year.
the wine shippers nor the traders Towards the end of last month
have taken much interest in the south western France was hit by a
transport chain up to now, as tra- tremendous storm, with wind
ditionally in the wine trade this speeds of up to 160 kph, that has
work is left to the buyers. devastated the forests of Aquitaine.
GPM needs to convince the This will in due course lead to an
region’s growers that they can increase in log exports. a74
32 February 2009
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