“Antipolis”, by Nina Leger, story of a non-place – Liberation

It is the story of a non-place, a kind of space which is neither a city, nor a village, nor a municipality, nor a locality. Nothing connects us to Sophia-Antipolis, except its function: it is a technology park in the forest, shaped by and for humans. The utopia of a mining engineer, Pierre Laffitte, who, in the 1960s, wanted to found a “Latin quarter in the fields”, a city of the future. “There was nothing, there would be everything”. What pre-exists the birth of a world? “A throw of the dice will never abolish chance. said Mallarmé. Pierre Laffitte had imagined Sophia-Antipolis throughout France, before fate leaned on the Mediterranean. In Montargis the thing might have been called Sophia-en-Gâtinais, in Orléans, Techkné-sur-Loire. Finally, it was around Antibes. Beautiful promises for a place devoid of history, really?

After the sexual geography of his Breaking into pieces (Gallimard, 2017), Nina Leger examines the destiny of this place nestled between river and forest. Everything is meticulous investigation, mysteries and uncertainties. Sophia-Antipolis bears the ancient name of Antibes. It means “the city opposite”. This simple name is an enigma. In front of what? From Nice, it is said, but the latter, daughter of Phocaea too, was founded after Antibes. Opposite Corsica? We don’t know.

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