Work will start later this year on the huge concrete pontoons that will form the basic structure of Monaco’s Portier extension into the sea.
The prefabrication of the 18 Jarlan pontoons will take place in Fos-sur-Mer, close to Marseille. The work will last two years and will start this September, journalists heard at a press conference in Marseille on April 6. The project will generate 700 direct and indirect jobs, and ultimately, more than 1.5 million tonnes of materials and building components will be loaded and transported to Monaco.
The prefabrication of the pontoons, a first in France, will be carried out using of a floating structure (caissonier) 56 metres long, 50 metres wide and 27 metres high. Bouygues TP, the principal contractor, calls the sea extension project an “emblematic operation”.
The meeting took place in Marseille City Hall in the presence of Jean-Claude Gaudin, Mayor of Marseille and President of the Metropole Aix-Marseille-Provence and Vice-President of the French Senate, Philippe Bonnave, Chairman and CEO of Bouygues Construction and Christine Cabau-Woehrel, General Manager of the Grand Maritime Port of Marseille.