L’évolution des sociétés portuaires et la démaritimisation des villes ports en Europe continentale du nord-ouest

The evolution of port societies and the “demaritimisation” of port-towns in North-Western Continental Europe. The notion of “maritimisation” is not recent. It covers all forms of penetration and of modelling of a society or of a group through the influence of the sea, the ships and the port activities : social or economic organization, ways of thinking, behaviour, the vision of the external world etc. Now since the middle of the 19 th century, the evolution of transocean traffic has modified the maritime aspects of port-towns. It was first the patrician phase dominated by the upper middle classes owning ships and trading with far away countries, with the repercussions which followed on the labour force in the docks and on board the ships, and consequently on the urban population. Then this structure was disrupted with the progressive loss of management power among these seaport upper middle classes and that happened with some difference depending on the French or Hanseatic ports. The rise of new forms of authority, the recent callapse in the numbers of dock workers and sailors, the strong penetration of continental influences into the management of maritime trade have led to the weakening of the former decision power of the old sea cities on their ports and provoked the “demaritimisation” of these port-towns ; the repercussions on transocean exchanges should now be assessed

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