MARSEILLE, France - In a building here, down by the old port, immigrants from the colonies, most of them North African, were showered, deloused and examined before entry into France. The structure had been abandoned for 40 years and was nearly demolished in 2009. Now, it is being rehabilitated as a museum, for an exhibition opening on March 1 called "Regards de Provence, Mediterranean Reflections" - part of Marseille's celebration of itself as a European Capital of Culture for 2013.

Gaining the title, designated by the European Union annually since 1985, is something like winning the Olympics. It gives Marseille, France's second-largest city, a chance to remake itself, reclaim its gorgeous port for ordinary citizens and to reshape its image - from a poor, rough, crime-ridden and corrupt crossroads whose economy declined with the end of colonialism to an attractive tourist destination of sun, sea, seafood and culture.

With a budget estimated at nearly $135 million, raised from public and private funds, the organizers hope to attract an additional two million visitors and lift the economy. The city has established 10 new sites for cultural activities, many of them a repurposing of old or abandoned buildings, like the sanitation station and a tobacco factory surrounded by graffiti-covered walls and exhibiting contemporary art on the theme of immigration and exile.

The city has also built some stunning new buildings. There is a huge glass Museum of Civilizations From Europe and the Mediterranean, due to open in June. And the Villa Mediterranee, an international center for dialogue and exchanges about the Mediterranean and its peoples.

Zineb Sedira, a photographer and videographer born in France to Algerian parents, said the city "has for a long time been neglected in France," better known for crime than for culture, she said. "Marseille now has a chance to put itself on the map."

Marseille hopes to claim a place as the link connecting northern and southern shores of the Mediterranean. A city with ancient Greek and Roman roots, it is trying to embrace the Italian and North African experiences of its many immigrant citizens. As many as 30 percent of its 850,000 residents are Muslim.

"Marseille created itself, strata upon strata, with foreign populations," said the city's longtime mayor, Jean-Claude Gaudin. "We've been privileged by proximity to the countries of the Maghreb. We're a multicultural city and must remain so."

In 2004, the Marseille City Council decided to apply for the European Capital of Culture designation for 2013. It was chosen in September 2008. Since then, Marseille mounted a sometimes frantic effort to get itself ready for prime time. The celebration will last a year, with a cycle of about 400 performances, exhibitions and concerts, as well as events including boat parades, guided treks and a street-food festival.

The region is hoping for a surge in civic pride that endures, as well as a stronger economy and an increase in tourism similar to what Avignon experienced in 2000 and Lille in 2004 after they were designated capitals of culture.

To be sure, there is harsh criticism, too. Minna Sif, a novelist from Marseille, born to Moroccan parents, compared the festivities to a "sardinade," a traditional Mediterranean dish of grilled sardines covered in olive oil.

"It's hard for me," she wrote in the newspaper Liberation, "to recognize myself in this sardinade, stamped as the capital of right-thinking, feel-good culture, run by a mess of preening cultural morons, of those assigned to the uncultivated and of ambitious people with their mouths stuffed with words."

The New York Times

(China Daily 02/17/2013 page10)