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Fort-de-France
Commune and capital city of Martinique From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Fort-de-France (/ˌfɔːr də ˈfrɒ̃s/, US also /ˌfɔːrt də ˈfræns/, French: [fɔʁ də fʁɑ̃s] ⓘ; Martinican Creole: Fodfwans) is a commune and the capital city of Martinique, an overseas department and region of France located in the Caribbean. This city, which had 76,512 inhabitants in 2019, concentrates major administrative, military, and cultural functions. It is also a significant economic, commercial, and port hub within the Lesser Antilles archipelago. The urban unit—that is, the agglomeration in the statistical and morphological sense defined by INSEE—had 115,501 inhabitants in 2022.[3] However, Fort-de-France lies at the heart of a conurbation of 165,500 inhabitants, which includes the neighboring municipality of Le Lamentin (where major business districts and the Martinique Aimé Césaire International Airport are located), the university town of Schœlcher, and the communes of Saint-Joseph and Case-Pilote.
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Fort-de-France has changed its name several times: the French first named the site Cul-de-Sac Royal (1635–1672). It then became the parish and later the town of Fort-Royal (1672–1793), before being renamed Fort-de-la-République or République-Ville following the Revolution (1793–1794). The town became Fort-Royal again (1794–1807) and finally took the name Fort-de-France in 1807.
Fort-de-France is also known for its bay opening onto the Caribbean Sea, particularly the Baie des Flamands, which borders the city center.[4]
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History
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The history of Fort-Royal, renamed Fort-de-France in 1807, has been marked since the founding of the colony by its rivalry with Saint-Pierre and by the natural disasters that repeatedly devastated the town. It was the eruption of Mount Pelée in 1902 which, by destroying Saint-Pierre, established Fort-de-France as the capital city of Martinique.
Founding of the city
While the Caribbean Indigenous peoples favored the windward coast (the Atlantic side) and the southern part of the island for their settlements, the French colonists settled as early as 1635 on the leeward coast (the Caribbean side) at the site of Saint-Pierre, where they built a small fort at the mouth of the Roxelane River. However, in a context of conflicts with the Indigenous Caribs, the Dutch, and the English, the colonists soon turned their attention to another strategic site, located at the entrance to the island’s largest bay. This site was easy to defend and well protected from storms, unlike the roadstead of Saint-Pierre.
Despite the unhealthy climate of the surrounding swamps, a first residential settlement was established on the site of today's city center by Governor Jacques Dyel du Parquet, nephew of the privateer Pierre Belain d'Esnambuc, who settled there in 1639. He had a first palisade fort built there, which he named Fort-Royal.
However, it was Governor Jean-Charles de Baas who decided to officially found the town under the name Fort-Royal on 3 October 1669. Work to drain and reclaim the swamps began, and the street alignment plan for the future town was approved by Colbert in 1671. This marked the birth of the 42-hectare quadrilateral, laid out in a grid pattern, which would become the urban core of the modern city: the lower town.
Nevertheless, the decision to establish a town in such an inhospitable location did not meet with unanimous support. The soft soil made construction difficult, and the swampy air led to high mortality due to malaria. The development of the town required major hydraulic works that took nearly a century to complete fully.
The year 1674 was marked by the famous Battle of Fort Saint-Louis, which saw the defeat of Admiral de Ruyter’s powerful Dutch fleet in its attempt to capture the town, and the incorporation of the French Antilles islands into the Crown of France.
In November 1677, the Count of Blénac landed in Martinique to succeed Governor de Baas, who had just died. It was he who completed the construction of the town, its fort (the present Fort Saint-Louis), and who is remembered by history as the founder of the city. A determined and tireless administrator, he secured the transfer of the seat of the General Government and the Governor’s Palace from Saint-Pierre to Fort-Royal in 1692, making the new town the administrative capital of Martinique.
Fort-Royal in the 18th century
In 1738, the town was devastated by an earthquake.
After the failed sea attack of 1759, the English captured Fort-Royal by land in 1762 following the landing of their troops at Case Navire. The fort and the whole of Martinique fell into British hands in February 1762.
Martinique was returned to France a year later under the Treaty of Paris. The town’s port facilities were then reduced to their bare minimum. The harbor basin was obstructed by the wrecks of eleven ships sunk by the English. Georges-René Pléville Le Pelley was appointed harbor master of Fort-Royal and tasked with its rehabilitation. During the restoration work, he drained the foul marshes surrounding the town and made the port accessible to larger commercial vessels. He abolished port access taxes and revived maritime trade. He then devoted himself to correcting nautical charts of the Antilles before being sent back to Marseille for health reasons. He was replaced by Robert Tascher de la Pagerie, father of the future Empress Joséphine.
Development of the city and rivalry with Saint-Pierre
After the period of British rule in 1794, the entry of Captain General Villaret-Joyeuse into Fort-Royal on 14 September 1802 marked Martinique’s return to France, following the Peace of Amiens signed with England.[5] Under the Empire, in 1807, the city became the administrative capital of the colony and took the name Fort-de-France. This name was not questioned during the second British occupation, from 1809 to 1815. However, as an administrative and military city, Fort-de-France still suffered from the competition of Saint-Pierre, which was more populous, enriched by trade and commerce, and renowned for its cultural life throughout the Antilles arc. The two cities nonetheless complemented each other: while Saint-Pierre served as an anchorage port, Fort-de-France functioned as a careening port. Moreover, new port developments were carried out in Fort-de-France during the 1860s, and a dry dock was inaugurated in 1868.
The present boundaries of the municipality date from 1888.
The arrival of enslaved people, freedpeople, and mixed-race populations—and then, from 1848 onward, populations that were now all free—spurred the city’s growth, which rose from about 9,200 inhabitants in the early 19th century to around 17,000 in 1876. In addition, the introduction of steam engines into the sugar-production system between 1840 and 1870 led to major changes in the agricultural and rural landscape of Martinique. This favored the concentration of land into large agricultural estates around central sugar factories and rum distilleries, while also creating a fragmentation of small properties and farms run by freedpeople or their descendants, and driving a large wave of rural exodus. At the same time, declining mortality accelerated population growth. Thus, in 1901, the census recorded 29,000 inhabitants in Saint-Pierre, compared to about 24,700 in Fort-de-France. But while the population of Saint-Pierre was almost entirely urban and spatially concentrated, that of Fort-de-France was far more dispersed: the urban area contained only 7,000 inhabitants, and most local jobs were still agricultural.[6]
Natural and human-made disasters destroyed the city several times. A major earthquake ravaged the town on 11 January 1839. Later, a great fire destroyed three-quarters of the colonial city—nearly all of its 1,600 wooden houses (built to better withstand future earthquakes), the market, and Saint-Louis Cathedral—on 22 June 1890. Then, on 18 August 1891, a cyclone struck the city, killing nearly 400 people. Ironically, it was yet another natural disaster that ultimately established Fort-de-France as the island’s leading city: the eruption of Mount Pelée, which devastated Saint-Pierre on 8 May 1902.
20th century
After the eruption of Mount Pelée, Saint-Pierre ceased to be a commercial city, having lost all the inhabitants who had remained there (except for two survivors). Its repopulation proceeded slowly and only partially. Migrants from the northern part of the island arrived in large numbers in Fort-de-France, which then took over all the port, industrial, economic, and commercial functions of Martinique. To cope with this influx of population, the mayor of the city, Victor Sévère, revived in 1904 a project previously discussed by local officials at the end of the previous century: the reclamation and municipalization of Terres-Sainville, a vast swamp located northwest of the colonial lower town, at the time inhabited by impoverished people who had built their huts there.
After a long legal battle to expropriate the inhabitants, the work was carried out in the second half of the 1920s, giving rise to a modern neighborhood intended for a working-class population. Its orthogonal street grid extended that of the city center, though with smaller blocks. Meanwhile, the neighborhoods of Sainte-Thérèse, Morne Pichevin, and Dillon, as well as other clusters of spontaneous individual housing (huts), developed along the roads leading to nearby towns. Driven by natural population growth and rural exodus, these areas created an image of scattered, unruly urbanization.
In the 1930s, sanitation remained inadequate, as shown by the condition of the Levée Canal—a series of ditches separating Terres-Sainville from the center—the dump at Pointe Simon, and the gutters that served as open-air sewers. Outside the city center, however, upscale colonial-style residences climbed the airy heights of the Didier plateau, northwest of the city (Balata), and at Redoute, on the road to Morne-Rouge. Fort-de-France thus appeared as a city of contrasts, more heterogeneous and less wealthy than Saint-Pierre had been in its golden age.
The economic crisis of the 1930s and World War II, which limited markets for Martinique’s sugar, harmed its agricultural system. The closure of major sugar factories during the 1950s and 1960s, the difficulties faced by small landowners or farmers to live off the products of their land, and rapid population growth combined to fuel emigration to mainland France and rural exodus toward Fort-de-France.
Benefiting from the 1946 departmentalization law and now better connected to the rest of the island thanks to improved road networks, the city offered hope of finding jobs in services and public facilities. The population grew from 16,000 inhabitants in 1894 to more than 52,000 in 1936, and then 66,000 in 1946. Although the reliability of censuses prior to 1954 is questionable—the 1954 census counted 60,600 inhabitants in Fort-de-France, revealing that the 1946 figure had been overestimated—it is undeniable that demographic growth was strong until 1967 (97,000 inhabitants), before stabilizing around 100,000 between 1974 and 1990. This growth came with the multiplication of shantytowns and other informal settlements that then surrounded the hypercenter (Terres-Sainville and the colonial center): Texaco, which lent its name to Patrick Chamoiseau’s famous novel, winner of the 1992 Prix Goncourt, Canal-Alaric, Volga-Plage, Trénelle, Citron, Fond-d’Or, Renéville, etc.
By the mid-1970s, it was estimated that 40% of buildings in Fort-de-France had been constructed without authorization and that unhealthy neighborhoods represented a quarter of all housing, sheltering a quarter of the municipality’s population.[7] To meet the needs, Aimé Césaire, mayor of the city from 1945 to 2001, undertook the construction of large social-housing complexes, such as the Dillon, Floréal, Bon-Air, and Calebasse estates in the 1960s and 1970s, and Châteaubœuf in the 1980s, as well as more residential neighborhoods (Cluny, Bellevue, Des Rochers, etc.), and supported the densification of central districts. The “hardening” of most former shantytowns—which were connected to utilities (water, electricity, etc.) and legalized—also accompanied the public policy aimed at eliminating substandard housing.
Since 1990, the population of Fort-de-France has been declining in favor of neighboring municipalities such as Schœlcher, Saint-Joseph, and Le Lamentin, and even further south in Martinique, where subdivision housing and collective residential complexes have been developed. The population fell below 90,000 inhabitants (municipal population, without double counting) in the 2007 census. Similarly, new employment areas have been established in these peripheral zones. This trend led the municipality to undertake urban restructuring projects in order to restore the city’s attractiveness (the business district of Pointe-Simon, the Perrinon shopping mall, etc.) and improve its living environment.
On May 22, 2020, the day commemorating the abolition of slavery in Martinique, the two statues of Victor Schoelcher located in Fort-de-France and in Schœlcher were destroyed by protesters who identified themselves as “anti-béké and anti-colonial heritage.”[8][9] The protesters accused the French authorities and local governments of “celebrating only white men and obscuring the figures of enslaved people who revolted,”[10] and reproached Schoelcher in particular for having allowed financial compensation to be paid to former white slave owners as part of abolition.
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Geography
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Fort-de-France, also known as the Fort of France, lies on Martinique's west coast at the northern entrance to the large Fort-de-France Bay, at the mouth of the Madame River. The city occupies a narrow plain between the hills and the sea but is accessible by road from all parts of the island.
Geology, relief, and hydrography
The topography is very varied. The commune of Fort-de-France stretches from the foothills of the volcanic massif of the Pitons du Carbet (the highest point of the commune reaches about 1,100 meters in altitude, near the summit of Piton Dumauzé) and the Morne Césaire (603 meters) down to the Caribbean Sea. The steep, wooded volcanic slopes are cut by a few small watercourses whose flow becomes torrential during rainfall.
The highlands overlooking the central part of the city, between the Pitons du Carbet and the plain of Le Lamentin, form a kind of dismembered piedmont composed of hills (mornes) and remnants of gently sloping plateaus. The two main rivers that flow into the sea at Fort-de-France are the Rivière Madame and the Rivière Monsieur.
The hypercenter of the commune, known as the ville basse (lower town), unfolds across a flat area that was once marshland (mangrove) between the Morne Tartenson and the Morne Pichevin (Hauts du Port). It opens onto a rocky spur that extends 300 meters into the bay, on which Fort Saint-Louis is built. This fort forms the main defense of the city, along with Fort Tartenson and Fort Desaix, located on hills at an altitude of 140 meters overlooking the city center.
The coastline along the shores of Fort-de-France alternates between cliffs and low-lying areas, and its grey-sand beaches are narrow. Only a few remnants of mangrove remain near the Pointe des Sables.
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Climate
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The climate of Fort-de-France is humid tropical, characterized by high average temperatures year-round (26.5 °C) and heavy precipitation (1,950 mm annually). However, the warmest monthly averages occur from August to October (31 °C daytime highs, 24–25 °C nighttime lows), while the coolest months are January and February (29 °C daytime highs, 22 °C nighttime lows). Like all of Martinique, Fort-de-France is influenced by the trade winds—the easterlies—whose general circulation determines the rainfall seasons.[11] Thus, two main seasons are distinguished:
- Carême (February to April): the drier season, during which the trade winds carry less moisture (average monthly rainfall of 60–90 mm) and the sky is relatively clear; very fine days are common, though occasional showers still occur.
- Hivernage (the rainy season, July to October): the warmer and wetter season, with more frequent and more intense showers. However, between disturbances the weather is fair, the sky lightly clouded, and the trade winds weak. Hivernage corresponds to the tropical cyclone season. Among the most violent or devastating storms were the cyclone of 19 August 1891, which caused the deaths of 400 people in Fort-de-France (1,000 in Martinique as a whole) and destroyed most of the hospital and the Balata military camp. During Hurricane Allen on 3–4 August 1980, wind gusts reached 167 km/h at Desaix, and 159 mm of rainfall were recorded in 18 hours. During Hurricane Edith on 25 September 1963, the flow of the Rivière Madame reached 150 m³/s, whereas it normally ranges from 20 m³/s in flood periods to 0.050 m³/s during low-water periods.[12]
The interseason periods (November–January, May–June) have intermediate climatic characteristics, but may be marked by exceptional events. For example, due to the heavy rainfall of 4–5 May 2009, the total precipitation for May 2009 was the highest recorded for that month in fifty years in Fort-de-France—three times the average volume—leading to major flooding.
One consequence of the mountainous terrain that dominates much of the territory of Fort-de-France, combined with episodes of heavy rain, is slope instability, resulting in landslide risks.
Because temperatures decrease with altitude, middle- and upper-class residents have sought these more ventilated, cooler areas to build their homes, such as in Balata, Tivoli, La Redoute, or Haut Didier. Additionally, vegetation and forested areas remain prominent within the city, especially on the northern slopes. The mesophilic vegetation of the lower slopes gives way to hygrophilic vegetation (forests with vines and large trees) above 700 m. Moreover, many houses surrounded by gardens contain species that can supplement the diet of urban Foyalais, such as breadfruit trees, mango trees, and coconut palms.
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Population
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Several disasters increased mortality in the 19th century, keeping the population below 17,000 inhabitants. Demographic growth was significant over the course of a century, from 1891 (after the last disaster affecting the municipality) to 1990, especially after 1954, reaching 100,000 inhabitants in the early 1990s. The city then began to lose population steadily (82,502 inhabitants in 2015).
The evolution of the number of inhabitants is known through population censuses carried out in the municipality since 1853, the first census following the 1946 departmentalization. Since 2006, the reference populations of municipalities have been published annually by INSEE. The census is now based on yearly data collection, covering all municipal territories over a five-year cycle. For municipalities with more than 10,000 inhabitants, censuses take place every year through a sample survey of 8% of dwellings, unlike smaller municipalities, which have a full census every five years.[17]
In 2022, the municipality had 75,165 inhabitants,[a] a change of −7.22% compared to 2016 (Martinique: −4.11%, France excluding Mayotte: +2.11%).
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Naval port
Fort Saint Louis in Fort-de-France is a French naval base.
Government
As of 27 June 2021, the Mayor of Fort de France is Serge Letchimy replacing Alfred Marie-Jeanne as the new mayor of the capitol. With a participation rate of little over 44% the Letchimy Party Alians Matinik received 37,72% of the votes, whereas Marie Jeanna who came in a close second with Gran Sanblé Pou Matinik acquired 35,27% of the votes. The commune of Fort-de-France makes up Martinique's 3rd constituency for the National Assembly.[20]
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Main sights
- Fort Desaix
- Place de la Savane
- Jardin de Balata, a botanical garden
- Fort-de-France Cathedral
- A statue of Empress Joséphine, the wife of Napoleon in the gardens of La Savane was destroyed by anti-racist protestors in 2020.[21]
Transport
Martinique Aimé Césaire International Airport is located in a suburb outside Fort-de-France.
Notable people
- Suzanne Lacascade (1884–1966), writer
- Manon Tardon (1913–1989), Resistance fighter
- Frantz Fanon (1925–1961), psychiatrist, political philosopher revolutionary
- Julienne Salvat (1932–2019), teacher, poet, actress
- Karine Jean-Pierre (born 1974), White House Press Secretary
- Jean-Michel Lucenay (born 1978), fencer
See also
Notes
- Reference municipal population in effect on 1 January 2025, based on the 2022 dataset, defined within the territorial boundaries valid on 1 January 2024; statistical reference date: 1 January 2022
References
External links
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