50,000+ people signed a petition to ban large cruise liners from Marseille (France).
Marseille Fos port city is one of the busiest European cruise ports, attracting ~2 million tourists annually.
Shipping accounts for ~10% of the city's air pollution, and as air pollution worsens, many of the locals say have had enough.
In July 2022, mayor Benoît Payan launched a petition to prohibit the most polluting vessels from stopping over.
Last month he tweeted that the Mediterranean was slowly dying but the giant cruise ship lobbyists wanted to continue to defile it.
To date, 52,000+ people have signed to stop the Mediterranean from ‘suffocating.’
Port Marseille is not the only one hitting back at air pollution from cruise ships.
Last year, Venice City (Italy) banned large passenger ships from the Venetian Lagoon. Earlier in 2022, Barcelona (Spain) announced it would levy a ‘pollution tax’ on cruisers.