Contenu du sommaire : L'espace public au Moyen-Orient et dans le monde arabe

In order to avoid essentialist ideal-types and abstract generalizations which were, in their time, produced by the discourse of orientalists contrasting the apparent disorder of Islamic medieval towns with the order of classical ones, the present article takes a very precise historical case, namely the town of Cordova at its apogee in the Xth century- It analyses, by using different sources (chronicles, legal texts and the result of archeological excavations), the nature and foundations of the urban order in Cordova, compared with the social organization and the specificity of the interplay between the state and society. It also looks at the articulation between different spaces, especially between the private and public spheres.

Urban society in the arab and islamic world was for a long time closely adapted to the urban morphology, clearly setting apart private spaces (residential areas) from the network of public spaces focussed on the souk. Modern public spaces along western lines have been set up rapidly, characterised by their monumental aspect, squares, public gardens, boulevards and inner spaces for various activities. Are these developments leading to significant changes in the public sphere, which traditionally has been based on users' behaviour, with the exclusion or edging out of certain groups ? It seems that political interests connected with the production mechanisms and uses of public spaces encourage, in the new urban spaces, the continuation of theses uses and the persistence of operational practices inherited from the past.

This contribution focuses on an aspect of town planning and development carried out in Casablanca under the leadership of General Lyautey and the architect Prost, using the example of the boulevard de la Gare (today Mohammed V avenue). This enables us to demonstrate that the urban reform carried out by the Protectorate to structure the city was also undertaken on behalf of private interests (for wich Lyautey had little interest), using their own "speculative techniques" in order to "manipulate" them better. The analysis of this public/private dialectic, cleverly negociated, enables us, by looking at these actors, to consider the question of the setting up of new public spaces. In particular, this is done in relation to the urban layout and the creation of new public highways which, at the same time, conform and contrast with the preexisting urban area.

The present article looks at various issues posed by the emergence of public or community spaces and places in the major towns of Morocco and notably Casablanca. The territorial dynamics which characterise these spaces (mosques, streets, old elements of the medina, elements of the former colonial new towns, new places of urban centralKy) illustrate - in a non- exhaustive way - the processes of restructuring of urban ways of living. These dynamics enable the gaps and the necessary 'adjustments' to be shown between, on the one hand, the formal logics of urbanism and urban planning and development and, on the other, the social production of space.

Initially public gardens were created for the upper middle classes but nowadays such Arab people prefer a more private lifestyle. These gardens have been left to poorer people. They function as meeting places and areas for leisure activities and, because of their public character, are areas of relatively free expression.

Beirut is a town with few public spaces. The large Seaside Park, on an area reclaimed from the Mediterranean Sea, is still in the project phase, and the Pine Forest, destroyed during the war (1975-1991), was partially opened in 2002. However, as in the majority of Mediterranean towns, the street, with its restaurants and cafes is the main focus of social relationship. Since the historical centre has been rebuilt, every evening and night this area is engulfed by people, mainly belonging to the middle or upper classes. For the less affluent inhabitants of Beirut their favourite place is the Corniche, a palm-tree lined walk which follows the Mediterranean Coast for a number of kilometres. After the war years, it seems that people are beginning to mix with each other again in the town's public spaces.

New actors are emerging as new leisure areas develop in post-war Beirut. Car parkers look after the vehicles of customers of bars and restaurants while private security guards protect the newly rebuild CBD. Besides their official functions, these actors seem to exercise a permanent controlling influence over public spaces. Their simple presence on the streets provides a permanent reminder of the kind of population which comes to these areas as well as the social rules that this population is expected to abide by. This continued presence of private actors in charge of public spaces is not new in Beirut ; on the contrary/ it reflects policies of social control apparent before and during the war. However, by adapting these measures to the contemporary urban leasure context, Beirut seems to demonstrate its willingness to modernise. Security norms found increasingly in world cities are applied efficiently, going beyond the social demand for security and creating an important social and cultural segregation.

This study of the sea-front Corniche at Beirut analyses the multiplicity of activities undertaken along this area which is visited by a wide range of people. Sporting activities dominate. Every day, at all hours, joggers, families picnicing, narghile smokers, women in veils or in shorts and solitary strollers pass, avoid or observe each other, creating new forms of contact, of self- expression and of social recognition. Currently new areas specifically reserved for sports are developing. Confined within a limited permimetre, these areas result from private initiatives and the commercialisation of sporting activities. In the context of the continued growth of privatised and specialised sporting and recreational areas, will urban sporting activities still enable integration (in all its different forms) into an urban society increasingly threatened by different forms of segregation ?

The author examines the notion of public space through the study of power relationships as defined by Foucault. Understanding the different forces at work in the transformation of the urban coastal area of Tripoli, following the development of a comiche, will be the opportunity to present the first defining elements of a group project entitled Tripoli society'. This preliminary study will then allow us to understand better the analysis of the negotiation processes related to the creation of a zoo adjacent to the corniche. From this case study a number of conclusions can be suggested with respect to the notion of urban public space in the Lebanon.