Christopher Nolan’s epic Dunkirk is a golden opportunity for this French port city to branch out from the heavy industry that has dominated it for a century

Not many small cities get a Hollywood blockbuster named after them, but then not many small cities are caught up in events as momentous as what unfolded on the French coast between 26 May and 4 June 1940. The 75th anniversary of the evacuation, Operation Dynamo, passed two years ago; Christopher Nolan’s epic is sure to bring further attention for this port city of 90,000 that almost spills over the Belgian border. It’s another opportunity to branch out from the heavy industry that has dominated since the late 19th-century and to deepen its tourist credentials.



Tourist dynamo

After the film’s world premiere in London on 13 July, Christopher Nolan and Harry Styles previewed it for the Dunkerquois at the city’s Ociné de Pôle Marine last Monday. It was the least locals deserved for pitching in: with Nolan able to do what Spielberg couldn’t on Saving Private Ryan and film in situ, the city provided around 2,000 extras for a six-week shoot on and around the beach at Malo-les-Bains last May and June. The Hollywood presence, which also involved technical staff from the area, brought in an estimated €5-7m for the local economy.

A nice little boost, but the municipality will be looking for Nolan’s Dunkirk spirit to linger in order to add touristic gloss to a city that has been largely known as a ferry and freight port and hub for intensive industries like steel and hydrocarbons. “The mayor, Patrice Vergriete, was very present at the events surrounding the filming,” says Paolo-Serge Lopes, 40, born in the city and president of a sustainable-energy company, “in order to make certain that that the French rediscover Dunkirk because of it. If we let the opportunity slip by, it’ll be a big mistake.” Key is the Dunkerque 1940 museum, which has just reopened with double the exhibition space.

Dunkirk in numbers …

3 – the harbour’s ranking in France’s list of biggest ports, behind Marseille and Le Havre.



3 – different nations – Spain, France and England – that controlled Dunkirk on 25 June 1658, the final day of a month-long siege.

6 – fission reactors at the nearby Gravelines nuclear power station, also the sixth largest in the world.

450 – kilograms of smoked herring symbolically thrown by the mayor and his team on to crowds at the mardi gras carnival.

… and pictures

A few years ago, in an effort to break past images of beleaguered servicemen on white-sand beaches, the city commissioned William Eggleston and other famous photographers to re-envision the place. Here’s a flick through what Eggleston stumbled upon.

History in 100 words

Thanks to Nolan’s cinematic Cliff Notes, no need to go over the evacuation. Suffice to say that Dunkirk – named for the “church in the dunes” noted there in the 11th century – has been much fought over down the centuries. The Flemish counts and their French vassal lords scrapped over this strategic point on the Channel in the Middle Ages; the tug of war continued, England, Spain, the Netherlands and various Hapsburg entities also weighing in, until the 17th century. Dunkirk was certifiably French by 1662, when pirates still operated out of the rapidly fortifying town and expanding harbour. Jean Bart, whose name is still on a major Dunkirk square, was No 1 rogue.

The arrival of rail in 1848 linked the city with the northern coalfields and made it a major point of entry for raw industrial materials. It also put a target sign over the city during wartime: heavily bombed in the first world war, it was more than 70% destroyed 30 years later. But Dunkirk bounced back. A modernist reconstruction of town and port proceeded under the urbanists Théodore Leveau and Jean Niermans, and perhaps fuelled by the ensuing tensions between locals and the French state, Dunkirk and surrounding communes declared themselves the county’s first agglomerated urban community in 1968.

Dunkirk in sound and vision

The Dunkirk carnival has a rep as France’s most raucous and eccentric. Here’s an hour of music to practice your finest drunken bellowing to.

Take a dip back in time for swimming lessons at the Bains Dunkerquois, the beautiful oriental-facaded folly that has been closed since 1975.

What everybody’s talking about

The ongoing plight in the north of migrants and refugees, despite the closure of the camp in Grand-Synthe – part of the Dunkirk urban community – after a fire in April. At the start of July, Grand-Synthe mayor Damien Carème alerted President Macron to the presence of hundreds of migrant rough-sleepers in Puythouck woods and threatened to reopen a welcome center in the commune if nothing was done.

“Migrant policy hasn’t changed between the UK and the France, and we haven’t dealt with the root of the problem from the humanitarian point of view,” says Lopes. But he says the general anxiety over the issue in Dunkirk is lower than down the coast. “It’s a relatively recent phenomenon here. Everything was concentrated in Calais, and Dunkirk was only a place of transit. A little while ago, people – especially the port-workers – were starting to say [the migrancy situation] could have an impact here. They didn’t want to have the problems their colleagues in Calais had to undergo.”

What’s next for the city

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Project Phoenix is the regeneration programme on which hopes for the new, more white-collar Dunkirk are resting. It’s hoped that initiatives like pedestrianizing Place Jean Bart and widespread reworking of street furniture, new shops and housing lining Parc de la Marine and overhauling the public-transport system will start to address the urban degrowth that means the city currently loses 1,000 people a year. Particularly forward-thinking is the fact that its bus network will become free to use in September next year; using Tallinn as a model, Dunkirk will be easily the largest of the 29 French cities or towns to have adopted such a measure. It’s a key step in revitalising a town centre that’s suffered partly because cars were so in vogue when the reconstruction was drawn up.

Close zoom

La Voix du Nord deals with the wider Pas-de-Calais region (in French), while Le Phare Dunkerquois gets in even closer – reporting this week on out-of-control seagulls and Harry Styles mania.

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