# Mission Racine

Mission Racine (French; officially Mission interministérielle d'aménagement touristique du littoral du Languedoc-Roussillon, abbreviation MIALR; "Interministerial working group for the tourist coastal infrastructure of Languedoc-Roussillon") was a government initiative for a large-scale infrastructure plan to expand the Tourism offer on the coast of the French region of Languedoc-Roussillon. Team composed exclusively of civil servants, the working group was initiated in 1963 and is named after its president, Pierre Racine. The mission under the Prime Minister Georges Pompidou must manage the road, maritime and air infrastructure by the State. Urban planning is the responsibility of the municipalities concerned between Marseille and Perpignan for popular tourism.

## Development

The working group was founded on June 18, 1963 and, as a centrally government-controlled initiative, represents the intermediate step from private tourism infrastructure planning to the "Schéma de cohérence territoriale" (SCoT), which has been established in France since the 1980s.
The planning affected both established locations that had been developed for tourism since the 19th century (Palavas-les-Flots and Valras-Plage) as well as new urban plans that had been created (particular mass-plans in Port-Camargue (architect Jean Balladur [fr]), La Grande-Motte (architect Jean Balladur [fr]), Cap d'Agde (architect Jean Le Couteur), Carnon (architect ), Gruissan (architects Raymond Gleize Edouard Hartané), Port-Leucate (architect Georges Candilis), Port-Barcarès (architect Georges Candilis), Saint-Pierre-la-Mer [fr](architects Henri Castella & Pierre Lafitte), Saint-Cyprien (architect Eugène Beaudoin [fr] ), Balaruc-les-Bains (architect André Gomis [fr]
The quantitative goal of Mission Racine was to expand bed capacity in the region from 250,000 beds (1964) to 650,000 beds (1980). Since the 2000s, attempts have been made to convert around 195,000 little-used second homes into permanent dwellings, although there are climatic problems concerning (in France) all the houses that will be below sea level.

## Architecture

The Mission Racine is formerly structured around Georges Candilis and some other architects. Various architectures are set up from
* La Grande Motte
* Saint-Cyprien
* Cap d'Agde
* Port-Camargue
* Gruissan
* Port Leucate
* Port-Barcarès
* Balaruc-les-bains

## Foundational elements

(Notice : At the same time, seaside resorts ("front de mer", seafront) and mountain resorts ("front de neige", snowfront) for leisure and regional economics were built up in the French government Action plan. )
Pierre Racine : "Why, you may ask, did the government launch this vast project to develop the Languedoc-Roussillon coastline last year? Because, paradoxically, at a time when millions of tourists are flocking to our Mediterranean coasts, 180 kilometers of coastline remain virtually untouched, despite already considerable efforts. For the first time, a regional urban development plan was drawn up by architects, monitored by technicians and approved by the government. There are three reasons why the state took charge of this vast undertaking, the first of its scale.
* Firstly, the need for a comprehensive plan: for the first time, a regional urban development plan was drawn up by architects, monitored by technicians and approved by the government.
* Secondly, the scale of the facilities required justified the involvement of the State, local authorities and all private resources.
Firstly, the State is directly responsible for the basic infrastructure: roads, harbors, sanitation, drinking water supply, mosquito control, etc. The local authorities that we wish to involve politically in this work, i.e. essentially the départements and the communes concerned, will be responsible for rehabilitating the land and the stations that the State will develop.
The private sector will play a decisive role in this development, building hotels, villas, houses and vacation camps; the specialized financial and real-estate groups, but also all social groups, youth clubs, tourism groups, etc., and lastly, private individuals wishing to acquire land to build their own villa;
* There is a third reason why the State has intervened: despite the considerable expansion of leisure tourism, it is not accessible to everyone today.
The Languedoc-Roussillon coast is the perfect opportunity to create the first tourism business for all. Not only in our resorts, our architects will tell you all about it. There will be developments of all kinds, but we intend to sell the land to social groups at a differential social price, i.e., at a lower price. To carry out this vast undertaking, the administration itself has had to adapt, as it is too compartmentalized to successfully complete a work requiring synthesis from conception and coordination to execution at all times. An interministerial mission was set up under the regional planning delegation, comprising the five ministries primarily concerned, the tourism commissioner, the Prefect of the Montpellier region and his general secretary, and Mr Pierre Raynaud [the future Conservatoire du littoral president], and the government delegation, to draw up the plan and have it implemented by all the Parisian and provincial administrations working on behalf of their commune. The interministerial mission is a conductor to whom the government has given a mandate to act and succeed, and this is what she intends to do."

### in

    "Pierre racine interview". Institut national de l'audiovisuel (document) (in French). 2 August 1964. translated text of the interactive text in the INA document