Friche la Belle de Mai

Friche la Belle de Mai is one of the largest cultural sites in Europe (45 000 m²), located in Marseille in France. Founded in 1992 in a former tobacco factory, La Friche has grown into a major creative and cultural center. It is both a working space for the 70 on site organizations (400 artists and creatives who work there every day) and a place for cultural dissemination and events (600 events each year on average, from youth workshops to large-scale festivals). With over 400 000 visitors a year, la Friche la Belle de Mai is a multi-faceted public space comprising a sports area, restaurant, 5 concert venues, shared gardens, a bookshop, a crèche, 2 400 m2 of exhibition space, a 8 000 m2 roof terrace, and a training centre.

La Friche operates under a SCIC (Société Coopérative d'Intérêt Collectif), a cooperative governance model that unites a diverse multi-stakeholder body: on-site operators, public and private partners, local inhabitants, employees and political stakeholders. This model positions La Friche as an innovative space for dialogue, co-construction and shared decision-making in service of the public interest.

Rooted in a working-class neighbourhood of Marseille, La Friche acts as a committed urban player engaged in ecological redirection, social inclusion and cultural rights. The site itself functions as a living laboratory, a "learning territory" where researchers, artists and citizens collaborate to renew knowledge production methods and collectively address societal challenges around urban transformation and ecological transition.

As an experienced Horizon Europe partner, La Friche is currently engaged as both a pilot site and Work Package leader. This track record reflects our capacity to go beyond field-site participation and actively co-produce knowledge alongside academic and institutional partners, making La Friche a distinctive and committed civil society partner for collaborative research.