Two distinct types of ports handle French deep-sea cargo: global ports of Northern Range and Marseilles serve a great number of overseas regions (forelands) and secondary ports mainly serve niche markets. In this paper we demonstrate that global ports serve also larger hinterlands, but their superiority over secondary ports depends on the types of cargo handled. The results of a spatial interaction model demonstrate that most of types of cargo flows are strongly distance-constrained. This evidence indicates that, despite a deep transformation on forelands, the secondary ports subsist because they partly depend on niche markets and local economies generating substantial amounts of non-containerised cargo flows. Some implications of this finding are suggested.