By bike, an unusual village in the Camargue

The Solvay coron was built between 1896 and 1902 by the Belgian company having imported its red brick architectural model. Salin is nicknamed "coron du sud" because of these dwellings designed on the model of the working cities of the north. This model reproduces the hierarchy of the enterprise, from the director's house to the workers’accomodation. Impregnated with paternalism, the Solvay company built for its employees, among others things, a hospital, a school group but also arenas.

Built in the twentieth century, the arena of Salin-de-Giraud is part of the social arsenal that the Solvay factory had set up for its staff. The workers from Gard wanted to have a place for their passion for bulls. The friar poet Carle Naudot, foreman at the Solvay factory, created the bullfighting club Prouvenço Aficioun to animate this enclosure, one of the first buildings of its kind in Provence. Today, arenas are a nerve center for the socio-cultural activity of the village.

In the mid-nineteenth century, 10,000 ha were developed by the company Henri Merle (Péchiney thereafter). Solvay settled next. The village of Salin-de-Giraud is born from the double implantation of Péchiney and Solvay in the late nineteenth century and their need for salt. The two companies turned to outside labor, initially from surrounding areas and then of Italian, Armenian and Greek origin, to carry out this painful work of salt exploitation.

It was here that people from Solvay and Péchiney met. In balls, at school. For a long time, the Carle Naudot square was the only link between the two parts of the village. C. Naudot worked at the Solvay design office. He was a municipal councilor and special assistant of the village, he is also at the origin of the bullfighting club (1901). Photo-ethnographer, the steel silhouettes scattered around the village are made from Saliniers photographed by C. Naudot.

The Catholic Church, which belongs to the Compagnie des Salins, is made of lightweight material. The chapel, with its single nave, rests on concrete walls punctuated by buttresses. The chapel was built in 1934-1935 and is covered by a low vault in broken cradle. In the era of industrial paternalism, workers are encouraged to practice the Catholic religion. Concerning education, the Péchiney society uses religious education, the Solvay group chooses secularism.

The Péchiney district has a less structured and organized organization than the Solvay district. It is more the result of a policy of temporary development and reoccupation of vacant buildings. Less structured, this district gave way to individual and collective initiative. So we can meet with DIY sheds, gardens in front of the house, shortcuts. It is possible to walk and walk from one street to another without forcing the privacy of its inhabitants.

In 1900, Adrien Badin was hired at the Salindres factory (Gard) by M. Péchiney. An essential figure in the development of the Company, he is appointed director after the departure of Mr. Péchiney. He established a system of retirement and health protection for his workers, he built "modern" cities. The company will experience a rapid development, from 3 to 12 factories in 1917 ! One of the neighbourhoods will long be called Badinville. A statue has been erected in his memory.

During the First World War, many of the Pechiney Company's workers did not return, so Italian, Greek, Armenian, Spanish and Maghrebi immigrants came to supplement the workforce. The old train linking the city of Arles to Salin-de-Giraud allowed to ensure their arrival. They were installed in the military quarter of Péchiney district which was converted into workers accommodation. It has therefore welcomed a labor force, composed for the most part, of immigrants.

The flourishing industry Solvay factories (established in 1895) requires manpower, especially at the time of the First World War when the French are at the front. The Greeks, who arrived between the two wars, settled by family reunification. They kept their customs and religion while integrating themselves into the life of the village. A church for Orthodox worship was built in 1952. The Salins du Midi company will donate it to the Greek Orthodox Metropolis of France in 2009.

The workers live in difficult conditions and to avoid any revolt the employers developed a social policy in the mid-nineteenth century. The worker becomes dependent from his company who offers him a housing. The company organizes leisure activities : the music, the library but also the sport. Impregnated with paternalism, the Solvay group took early initiative to organize leisure, a way to ensure the cohesion of employees, the sports bar is present in this neighbourhood.

The architects and planners of Solvay have drawn ex nihilo a working-class city that looks like corons from the north. A coron is a group of dwellings typical of Western European regions where workers live with their families. Unlike the working class, the houses are terraced and an alley separates the corons located opposite. The factory is usually located near the workers' accommodation.. The corons are one-storey dwellings with a small vegetable garden at the rear.

The Barcarin church stands apart from the village of Salin-de-Giraud, along the river. built in the 19th century. under the prestigious name of Saint-Trophime, it will shelter only for a few decades the faith of the saline and other riparians of the Rhone. Its discreet presence testifies as much to the difficult organization of worship in the deepest part of Arles, as to the ravages of the mouth of the Grand Rhone. The cult is practiced today in a modern chapel of the village.