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The town where jules is prince
Some sleeping beauties are woken up by a prince. Sausset was woken up by Jules Charles-Roux, the son of a slightly megalomaniac industrialist who built the “château”, a landmark for sailors.
From the open sea, you know you’re sailing in the right direction for Sausset-les-Pins when you see a vast residence looming 
over the harbour: the “château,” a large, pale building with a red roof, flanked by a pointed turret in the middle of a patch of green. To the right, a group of small blocks of flats can also be clearly seen...
With its recently strengthened sea walls, the harbour is well sheltered from W/N-W winds and not so well from E/N-E winds, but there is a little outer harbour, making it possible to enter, with a bit of bumping around.
Sausset Les Pins is more than just a guaranteed refuge; it is also a welcome stop, full of charm, with a harbour at the heart of the village (but nice quiet moorings!) surrounded by markets, fresh fish stalls, cafés and restaurants.
THE CHÂTEAU, A LOVELY LANDMARK
You can’t miss the château – besides, that’s why it was put there. In 1854, Jean-Baptiste Charles Roux, the owner of an oil and soap factory in Marseilles, arrived in Sausset les Pins. The following year, he had a kind of château built in a 300ha pine forest overlooking the sea. He wanted it to be imposing and dominating, like a fortress over the little shacks - more for looking at than looking out of. It’s not quite the same thing.
Because this building, which has been a marker for all sailors ever since, was intended as a very personal landmark for this captain of industry: he could see his château from his office in Marseilles, where he was forced into business exile, away from his “home sweet home”!
His family also had the “new farm” built, an agricultural building which led to the creation of a lot of jobs in the village. Today, it houses local government services and the village hall.
Although Jean-Baptiste will be remembered by the Saussétois for his conspicuous fortune, it was his son Jules who won their hearts. He was involved in many business, political and artistic activities and made the château into a museum and cultural centre. He presented the village with various pieces of land, including an olive grove next to Sausset les Pins’ small natural bay, the location of the modern harbour.
After Jule’s death, the chateau was sold off as apartments in 1931. Part of the 300ha pine forest was divided up in 1978, and three new housing estates were built there.
BEFORE THE TRAIN AND THE ROAD
At the time when the château was built – under Napoleon III – Sausset les Pins was a “district” of Carry le Rouet. If it weren’t for the customs officers’ road, which still links Martigues with Marseilles, the hamlet would only have been accessible by sea. And, with the exception of a few scattered farms, where people made a living from vines, olives and raising goats, most of the small number of houses were concentrated around the little harbour, which is now the centre of tourist activity. It wasn’t until the 1860s that the first villas appeared and the church of St. Peter, patron saint of fishermen, was built.
The mural on the wall surrounding the harbour shows that fishing, particularly for tuna, was the main activity here. The big annual event was the tuna seine fishing (the equivalent of the Spanish and Catalan matanza), when all the men in the village would gather together on boats grouped in a circle. This group fishing would end with the catches being displayed on the quay. 
The harbour grew in 1868, with the addition of another inlet and a jetty. This major work, which was partly funded by Jules Charles-Roux, led to the development of the fishing industry. As in several other places, it was the opening of the Port de Bouc – l’Estaque railway in 1915 which made Sausset accessible and allowed it to become a small family seaside resort. The village became independent from Carry in 1924. While it has maintained its position as a tourist resort, the village is not subject to the colossal seasonal variations in population which have a huge effect on other holiday towns: it has 8,000 inhabitants in winter and around 11,000 in summer. A relatively young, permanently resident population, commuting to Marseilles or Fos for work, helps maintain the demographic equilibrium. This explains the town’s bustling village atmosphere, even out of season.
