Salt Production
​
Salt from an evaporation technique was widely practiced for centuries in the étangs of the Camargue which were allowed to fill with salt water, closed off and left to evaporate under the Provençale sun. It also dates from antiquity but, like rice production, really came to prominence towards the end of the nineteenth century. Since then, 20,000 ha of lagoons have been developed, i.e. 15% of the delta's surface area. Currently, near the mouth of the Grand Rhône, the Giraud saltworks (6,000 ha) extracts sodium chloride from seawater (340,000 tonnes/year). This production is intended for winter road treatments. To the west of the Petit Rhône, the production around Aigues-Mortes (10,000 ha) is given over to the production of edible salt (450,000 tonnes/year). The saltworks still activity relies on immigrant communities established in the town of Salin-de-Giraud .
The Solvay Factory
​
Another major historical feature for the Camargue is often overlooked is the Solvay Company, a manufacturer of industrial soda from sea salt, a product destined primarily for the neighbouring Marseilles soap industry. The Belgian group Solvay has operated the Giraud saltworks since in 1896. It contributes to the industrial development of the region but also to the emergence of the village of Salin-de-Giraud that was a model workers' town built in the tradition of social employers in the North, with an infirmary, sports centre, cinema, primary school and, this being Provençe, a bull arena!
​
The connection between the Giraud and Solvay saltworks was broken when, in 1962 the factory abandoned the production of soda (and therefore the purchase of salt), for that of lime carbonate with multiple other uses (stationery, toothpaste, putties, inks). In 1981, the mineral chemistry unit was coupled with a pharmaceutical chemistry unit which produced active ingredients used in cardiology and gastroenterology.
​
The Fos-sur-Mer complex
​
Although situated at the right hand edge (and therefore less visited) of the Camargue, this enormous 10,000 ha complex, established in the 1960s, extends from Port-Saint-Louis-du-Rhône to Fos-sur-Mer. Managed by the autonomous port of Marseille, it includes a multitude of branches: giant port terminals for oil and LPG tankers, ore carriers, and general goods), steel complexes ensuring a quarter of French steel production, oil refineries (Esso, Shell), various chemical product sectors (Elf, Atochem), offshore metal constructions (Eiffel), storage and incineration of chemicals, oil depots to name only the main units out of a total of 400 companies!
​
A vast oil refinery and industrial complex may not be on your Camargue bucket list but without it many inhabitants of the eastern Camargue would be unemployed
