Marseille as a second power center in France, a Paris of the south

I'm not an expert on French history, so I can't really give a good scenario for how to get there, but what one would need to do from a state structure standpoint is fundimentally change the early character of the governmental power. Though a relatively centeralized state compared to it's contemporaries, ancien regeime France was still a fedual society with highly defused local codes of law which placed authority (and reveune generation; it's source) in the hands of the nobility almost exclusively. In order for Marsellies to develop more independent power, it'd have to have a local class of elites not integrated into the court system that could leverage it's ability to provide money to Paris in times of trouble for unique local privlages: most likely a class of merchant-oligarchs who could snag and legally defend a monopoly on and revenue from the Med. Trade. Perhaps this could come about during the later 100 years war, and it's importance growing by a serious attempt to obtain Capitulations and co-operation with the Ottomans in an effort to undermine the Venetians and Genoa?
 
Arabs invade first by land then by sea, Marseilles is used as their primary base and they leave it largely alone or build it with oddities like a library and sewer system. Population increases faster and the city gains control of the Western Mediterranean trade as capital of the Cathar Republic. Ultimately it is conquered by France after Barcelona and Genoa are sacked by the Emirate of the Balearics and Granada. By 1550, Marseilles has a greater population than Venice and Madrid combined, greatly influencing French culture and language. With the deatruction of Lyon and Geneva in a series of wars over the next three centuries, only Paris and Marseilles remain as focal French cities.
 
As long we're talking of an identifiable ATL France, Paris would remain a main center : at least since the IXth century, it was considered as such in spite of not having a Carolingian palace and even during Merovingian period, the division of royal ficus genreally focused on giving each king a part of Francia proper (meaning the region between Orléans and Metz, roughly).
Marseilles, on the other hand, wasn't really part of France as it was understood then (Provence being fairly peripheral) and didn't began to be before the XVIth century at earliest.

Now, if we're talking of a capital in the rough region of IOTL France...

how could it have been more prominent?
Marseilles simply didn't "cleaned" its orbit : you had a lot of other cities in the region that lived their own and could claim regional leadership at times :Arles, Avignon, Aix mostly. In fact, these cities tended to play a more important role during Middle-Ages and part of the Modern age, Marseilles going trough cyclical crises.
There's many reasons for that, but eventually one key difference between Marseilles and Paris is that while Paris (or the whole Francilian region) is set in a region without real geographical obstacles (at the contrary, agriculturally prosperous, and rivers allowing hinterland and coastal trade alike) while Marseille's territory is really quickly ended by a set of highlands that "forces" the city to look to the sea and coastal plain.
Another issue is that the multiplication of cities in Provence comes from Roman times, with each of them being fairly small (an average of, roughly, 2 000 inhabitants) but with an important enough sense of identity. You'd need Marseilles to create its own contado out of it (necessarily neutralizing Aix) to realize something. An immediate obstacle for this being that Marseilles, compared to cities as Montpellier, didn't really had a large municipal autonomy before the XVth century, being stuck in a loop of conflcit between patricians, counts, pope, abbatial power.

That said, there's nothing impossible making Marseilles more important it is today, but I'm not sure it would be trough wanking it : maybe butterflying away one of its regular contractions (for instance, preventing Peppinid takeover of Provence; or Marseilles playing a game of balance between France and HRE in order to increase its regional importance and take on the hinterland) and slowly building up Marseilles' power trough the TL : there's nothing really implausible eventually. But there's not a single PoD that could ensure it would happen IMO.

On the other hand, if you manage to allow Marseilles taking on its immediate neighbours and maybe allowing the city to pull a Venice by expanding its hinterland territory, there's not a single reason why it couldn't happen either, at least for what matter Provence and/or the general Rhodanian axis.

I remember someone making a Massalian empire TL, so that might do the job.
Massalia had a fairly limited territorial control in Gaul, even in its territorial apogee in the Vth century, while it was maintained trough a series of outposts and semi-hellenized establishment like Rhoudanousia and Thélinè (Arles) that allowed to control the Delta region and a bit beyond, it was less a chorè than a mix between a chorè and political network (which was called "Cities of Massalia", Poleis Massalias"). Note that colonies of Massalia such as Nikaia (Nice) or Agathè (Agde) never really was under their metropolis' control but were managed on their own, a "special" relation to Massalia being largely based on symbolic features (or in the case of Emporion, not even that).
The problem of Massalia are essentially the same than Marseilles, albeit differently : the city is still stuck between sea and step hills, it is surrounded by relatively powerful neighbours (Salues mostly, but as well Cavares, Volcae,etc.) doubled down by their relative cultural isolation.

It's why a significant part of their controlled hinterland was lost to them in the course of IVth and IIIrd centuries, Celto-Ligurian peoples (notable Salues, Cauares and Volcae) advancing slowly in spire of Massalia's best efforts, which ended to stuck the city to the immediate coastal plain. It's basically the reason why the Roman-Massaliote alliance was a thing for the Phocean city : they needed some support to, far from building up an empire, prevent being even more pressured on by their neighbours.

Arabs invade first by land then by sea, Marseilles is used as their primary base and they leave it largely alone or build it with oddities like a library and sewer system. Population increases faster and the city gains control of the Western Mediterranean trade as capital of the Cathar Republic. Ultimately it is conquered by France after Barcelona and Genoa are sacked by the Emirate of the Balearics and Granada. By 1550, Marseilles has a greater population than Venice and Madrid combined, greatly influencing French culture and language. With the deatruction of Lyon and Geneva in a series of wars over the next three centuries, only Paris and Marseilles remain as focal French cities.
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Marseilles was fairly declining by the VIIIth and IXth century : assuming Arabs manage to hold on to the territory they controlled after the 734, which included Avignon and Marseilles, it would likely take the same form than in Lower Languedoc in the same period, namely a negociated submission and local elites remaining in charges which would mean Maurontus, as provencal patrice, would likely still rule the region under their remote suzerainty, while Arabo-Berbers would likely be unable to set up more than one garrison (likely in Avignon) due to their systematic shortage of men (IOTL, they controlled Arbûna/Narbonne directly, and that's about it).
The incoming Berber revolt would have probably similar results than IOTL, meaning isolating and rending vulnerable enough places without firm control.
 
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In order for Marsellies to develop more independent power, it'd have to have a local class of elites not integrated into the court system
While your general proposal is really interesting, patrician rise was generally possible because upper-middle urban class was tied up to nobiliar power, especially in Southern France and Italy : it's especially the case with most example of particularily independent consulates in southern France, such as Montpellier and Toulouse (before the Crusade) Marseilles, however, had trouble settling municipal autonomy in the XIIth and XIIIth century, mostly because of the viscounts general opposition and interventionism : it's true that the economical regrowth of the city happened a bit later than other places, but if you manage to get some self-rule, you'd have something interesting enough to start with.
Sorry for the lack of imagination, but I think having something comparable to Montpellier would be helpful : roughly, definitely separate Marseilles from Provence (let's say that Provence falls into Raimondine control during the Great Southern War or "pre-GSW"), at the exceptions of some coastal places) which would enjoy significant autonomy and economic projections from their overlords which would be more focused elsewhere. From this, the constitution of a patrician elite (which, really, would have all the bearings of a court/urban society). I'm not sure it would be nearly enough to wank the city (you'd probably need other PoDs such as surviving Yereosolemite kingdom, or Tunis' region being taken over by Naples or someone else, due to Marseilles' importance in grain trade); but with enough luck you could get a meta-conurbation between Marignan-Marseilles-Aix much earlier than IOTL, that the last would dominate enough to form a contado on them.

I'm not sure, however, about it being a financial powerhouse : you already had a lot of financial specialists in France that weren't necessarily Italians : very roughly, you people called "Cahorsins", from the town of Cahors which wasn't that obviously prosperous, and probably a lot of Cahorsins weren't from Cahors, as lot of Lombards didn't come from Italy). Financial exchanges were common enough from the XIIth century onwards and became a necessarily feature of urban and immediate rural life (cf. La Naissance du Capitalisme au Moyen-Âge, Jacques Heers), ending up with no this obvious financial specialization of towns but rather families.

You'd be right to say that Marseilles' families could play such role (for exemple, we could have "Marseillais" along with "Cahorsins" and "Lombards") and that royal finances did have more needs than petty financers : I'd entierely agree. Still, biggest loaners were rarely big traders (roughly, long range trade was risky, and not necessarily this fructuous long-term). After all, the city was a main trade place in Southern France (grain, tissues, spices) but it never really made her a financial trade-hub, IMO in no small part because its productive role was meager, in spite of going trough favourable situations : thinking out loud there, I think you'd need Marseilles to undergo some production or transformation specialization beyond naval supplies with the problem that most of the traded goods weren't transformable, so I think Marseilles would have to fight over grain trade with Genoa (among many others) in Late Middle-Ages without real capacity IMO to outcompete them. But, if we have enough changes (such as southern Italian takeover of Tunis) we could see Marseilles rather specializing in western Med. for grain trade and maybe pulling a Pisa in investing significantly in cash-crop plantations in Spain.
 
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