Marseille: the second city of France, endearing and detestable at once, is what Jean-Christophe Béchet seems to be telling us. He was born there. Without settling accounts, he observes his own city, and what he sees is mutation, perpetual movement, the strata piling up from antiquity to the present, the surf of the Mediterranean and the haunting rhythm of its waves. Here the centre, the inner port, the motorway that leads there: a city in reverse. European capital of culture in 2013, it was an occasion to look again, and to return.