Lille ( ; ) is a city in
northern France
.
It is the
principal city of the Lille Métropole, the
fourth-largest metropolitan area
in the country behind those of Paris
, Lyon
and Marseille
. Lille is situated on the Deûle
River, near France's border with Belgium
.
It is the
capital of the Nord-Pas de
Calais
region and the
prefecture of the Nord
department.
The city
of Lille, which annexed Lomme
on 27
February 2000, had a population of 226,014 at the 2006
census. Meanwhile, the Lille Métropole, which also
includes Roubaix
, Tourcoing
and numerous suburban communities, had a population
of 1,091,438. The eurodistrict
of Lille-Kortrijk, which also includes the areas of the Belgian
cities of Kortrijk
, Tournai
, Mouscron
and Ypres
, had
1,905,000 residents.
History
Origin of the city
The legend of "
Lydéric and
Phinaert" puts the foundation of the city of "L'Isle" at 640.
Although the first mention of the town appears in archives from the
year 1066, some archeological digs seem to show the area as
inhabited by as early as 2000 BC, most notably in the modern-day
quartiers of
Fives,
Wazemmes, and Old Lille.
The original inhabitants of this region were the
Gauls, such as the
Menapians,
the
Morins, the
Atrebates, and the
Nervians,
who were followed by
Germanic
peoples, the
Saxons and the
Frisians, and the
Franks
later.
From 830 until around 910, the
Vikings
invaded Flanders. After the destruction caused by
Norman and
Magyar
invasion, the eastern part of the region fell under the eyes of the
area's princes.
The name Lille comes from
insula or
l'Isla, i.
"the island", since the area was at one time marshy. This name was
used for the castle of the
Counts of
Flanders, built on dry land in the middle of the marsh.
The Count
of Flanders controlled a number of old Roman cities (Boulogne
, Arras
, Cambrai
) as well as
some founded by the Carolingians
(Valenciennes
, Saint-Omer
, Ghent
, Bruges
).
The
County of Flanders thus extended
to the left bank of the Scheldt
, one of the
richest and most properous regions of Europe.
Middle Ages
A local notable in this period was
Évrard, who lived in the ninth century
and participated in many of the day's political and military
affairs.
From the twelfth century, the fame of the Lille cloth
fair began to grow. In 1144
Saint-Sauveur parish was formed, which would
give its name to the modern-day
quartier
Saint-Sauveur.
The
counts of Flanders, Boulogne, and Hainaut
came together with England
and the Holy Roman
Empire of Germany
and declared war on France and Philip II of France, a war that ended
with the French victory at Bouvines
in 1214. Infante Ferdinand, Count of
Flanders was imprisoned and the county fell into dispute: it
would be his wife, Jeanne,
Countess of Flanders and Constantinople
, who ruled the city. She was said to be
well-loved by the residents of Lille, who by that time numbered
10,000.
In 1224, the monk
Bertrand of
Rains, doubtlessly encouraged by local lords, tried to pass
himself off as
Baldwin I of
Constantinople (the father of Jeanne of Flanders), who had
disappeared at the
battle of
Adrianople. He pushed the kingdoms of Flanders and Hainaut
towards sedition against Jeanne in order to recover his land. She
called her cousin,
Louis VIII
("The Lion"). He unmasked the imposter, whom Countess Jeanne
quickly had hanged. In 1226 the King agreed to free
Infante Ferdinand, Count of
Flanders. Count Ferrand died in 1233, and his daughter Marie
soon after. In 1235, Jeanne granted a city charter by which city
governors would be chosen each All Saint's Day by four
commissioners chosen by the ruler. On February 6, 1236, she founded
the Countess's Hospital (
L'hospice de la comtesse), which
remains one of the most beautiful buildings in Old Lille. It was in
her honor that the hospital of the Regional Medical University of
Lille was named "Jeanne of Flanders Hospital" in the 20th
century.
The Countess died in 1244 in the
Abbey of
Marquette, leaving no heirs. The rule of Flanders and Hainaut thus
fell to her sister,
Margaret II, Countess of
Flanders, then to Margaret's son,
Guy of Dampierre.
Lille fell under the
rule of France from 1304 to 1369, after the battle of Mons-en-Pévèle
.
The county of Flanders fell to the
Duchy of Burgundy next, after the 1369
marriage of
Margaret
III, Countess of Flanders, and
Philip the Bold,
Duke of Burgundy.
Lille thus became one
of the three capitals of said Duchy, along with Brussels
and Dijon
. By
1445, Lille counted some 25,000 residents.
Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy, was even
more powerful than the
King of
France, and made Lille an administrative and financial
capital.
On 17 February 1454, one year after the
taking of Constantinople by the
Turks,
Philip the Good organised a
Pantagruelian banquet at his Lille
palace, the still-celebrated "
Feast of the Pheasant". There the Duke
and his court undertook an oath to
Christianity.
In 1477, at the death of the last duke of Burgundy,
Charles the Bold,
Mary of Burgundy married
Maximilian of Austria, who
thus became Count of Flanders. At the end of the reign of the
Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, Spanish Flanders
fell to his eldest son, and thus under the rule of
Philip II of Spain, King of Spain. The
city remained under Spanish rule until the reign of
Philip IV of Spain.
The modern era
The 16th century was marked by the outbreak of the
Plague, a boom in the regional textile industry,
and the
Protestant revolts.
The first
Calvinists appeared in the area
in 1542; by 1555 anti-Protestant repression was taking place.
In 1578,
the Hurlus, a group of Protestant rebels,
stormed the castle of the Counts of Mouscron. They were removed four months later by a
Catholic Wallon
regiment,
after which they tried several times between 1581 and 1582 to take
the city of Lille, all in vain. The Hurlus were notably held
back by the legendary
Jeanne
Maillotte. At the same time (1581), at the call of
Elizabeth I of England, the north of
the
Southern Netherlands,
having gained a Protestant majority, successfully revolted and
formed the
United Provinces.
In 1667,
Louis XIV of France
(the Sun-King) successfully laid
siege to Lille, resulting in it
becoming French in 1668 under the
Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle,
provoking discontent among the citizens of the prosperous city. A
number of important public works undertaken between 1667 and 1670,
such as the Citadel (erected by
Vauban), or
the creation of the quartiers of Saint-André and la Madeleine,
enabled the King to gradually gain the confidence of his Lille
subjects, some of whom continued to feel Flemish, though they had
always spoken the Latin
Picard
language.
For five
years, from 1708 to 1713, the city was occupied by the Dutch
, during the War of the Spanish
Succession. Throughout the 18th century, Lille remained
profoundly Catholic. It took little part in the
French Revolution, though there were riots
and the destruction of churches. In 1790, the city held its first
municipal elections.
After the French Revolution
In 1792, in the aftermath of the
French Revolution, the
Austrians, then in the United Provinces, laid
siege to Lille.
The "Column of the Goddess
", erected in 1842 in the "Grand-Place" (officially
named La Place
du Général de Gaulle), is a tribute to the city's resistance,
led by Mayor François
André. Although Austrian artillery destroyed many houses
and the main church of the city, the city did not surrender and the
Austrian army left after eight days.
The city
continued to grow, and by 1800 held some 53,000 residents, leading
to Lille becoming the county seat of the Nord départment in 1804.
In 1846,
a rail line connecting Paris and Lille
was built.
At the
beginning of the 19th century, Napoleon I's continental blockade against the United
Kingdom
led to Lille's textile industry developing itself
even more fully. The city was known for its cotton, and the nearby towns of Roubaix and Tourcoing worked wool.
In 1853,
Alexandre
Desrousseaux composed his famous lullaby
Dors mon p'tit
quinquin. In 1858, an imperial decree led to the annexation of
the adjacent towns of Fives,
Wazemmes, and
Moulins. Lille's population was 158,000 in 1872, growing to over
200,000 by 1891. In 1896 Lille became the first city in France to
be led by a
socialist,
Gustave Delory.
By 1912, Lille's population was at 217,000: the city profited from
the
Industrial Revolution,
particularly via
coal and the
steam engine. The entire region had grown
wealthy thanks to the mines and to the textile industry.
First World War
German military parade in Lille,
1915
Between 4-13 October 1914, the troops in Lille were able to trick
the enemy by convincing them that Lille possessed more
artillery than was the case; in reality, the city
had only a single
cannon. Despite the
deception, the German bombardments destroyed over 2,200 buildings
and homes. When the
Germans realised they
had been tricked, they burned down an entire section of town,
subsequently occupying the city.
Lille was liberated by the British on 17 October 1918, when General Sir William
Birdwood and his troops were welcomed by joyous crowds.
The general was made an honorary citizen of the city of Lille on 28
October of that year.
Lille was also the hunting ground of World War I German flying Ace
Max Immelmann who was nicknamed "the
Eagle of Lille".
The Années Folles, the Great Depression, and the
Popular Front
In July
1921, at the Pasteur
Institute
in Lille, Albert
Calmette and Camille Guérin
discovered the first anti-tuberculosis
vaccine, known as BCG ("Bacille de Calmette et
Guérin"). The
Opéra de
Lille, designed by Lille architect
Louis M. Cordonnier, was dedicated in 1923.
From 1931 Lille felt the repercussions of the
Great Depression, and by 1935 a third of
the city's population lived in poverty. In 1936, the city's mayor,
Roger Salengro, became
Minister of the Interior
of the
Popular Front,
eventually killing himself after right-wing groups led a slanderous
campaign against him.
Second World War
Lille was taken by the Germans in May 1940, after brief resistance
by a
Moroccan Infantry division.
When
Belgium was invaded,
the citizens of Lille, still marked by the events of the First
World War, began to flee the city in large numbers.
Lille was
part of the zone under control of the German commander in Brussels,
and was never controlled by the Vichy
government. The départments of Nord and
Pas-de-Calais (with the exception of
the coast, notably Dunkirk
) were, for the most part, liberated in five days,
from the 1 to 5 September 1944 by British, American
, Canadian
, and Polish
troops. On 3 September, the German troops began to leave
Lille, fearing the British, who were on their way from Brussels.
Following this, the Lille resistance managed to retake part of the
city before the British tanks arrived. Rationing came to an end in
1947, and by 1948, some normality had returned to Lille.
Post-war to the present
In 1967, the Chambers of Commerce of Lille, Roubaix and Tourcoing
were joined, and in 1969 the
Communauté urbaine de Lille
(Lille urban community) was created, linking 87
communes with Lille.
Throughout the 1960s and 70s, the region was faced with some
problems after the decline of the coal, mining and textile
industries. From the start of the 1980s, the city began to turn
itself more towards the
service sector.
In 1983, the
VAL, the world's first
automated
rapid transit underground
network, was opened. In 1993, a high-speed
TGV
train line was opened, connecting Paris with Lille in one hour.
This,
with the opening of the Channel Tunnel
in 1994 and the arrival of the Eurostar train, put Lille at the centre of a
triangle connecting Paris, London
and
Brussels.
Work on
Euralille, an urban remodelling
project, began in 1991. The Euralille Centre was opened in 1994,
and the remodeled district is now full of parks and modern
buildings containing offices, shops and apartments. In 1994 the
"Grand Palais" was also opened.
Climate
Lille can be described as having a temperate oceanic climate; there
are neither cold nor hot extremes, and average precipitation. The
winters are mild and the summers are pleasant.
Comparative Climatic Table
| City |
Clear |
Rain |
Snow |
Storm |
Fog |
| Paris |
h/yr |
642 mm/yr |
15 d/yr |
19 d/yr |
13 d/yr |
Nice |
h/yr |
767 mm/yr |
1 d/yr |
31 d/yr |
1 d/yr |
Strasbourg |
h/yr |
610 mm/yr |
30 d/yr |
29 d/yr |
65 d/yr |
| Lille |
1 600 h/yr |
687 mm/yr |
19 d/yr |
19 d/yr |
69 d/yr |
National Average |
h/yr |
770 mm/yr |
14 d/yr |
22 d/yr |
40 d/yr |
The table below gives temperatures and precipitation levels for the
year 2006 and also the record temperatures. :
Economy
A former
major textile manufacturing centre, Lille
forms the heart of a larger conurbation, regrouping Lille, Roubaix, Tourcoing and Villeneuve d'Ascq
, which is France's 4th-largest urban conglomeration
with a 1999 population of over 1.1 million.
Points of interest
Transport
Public transport
A Lille tram
The
Lille
Métropole has a mixed mode public transport system, comprising
buses,
trams and a
driverless
metro system, all of which
are operated under the Transpole name. The
Lille Metro is a
VAL system
(
véhicule automatique léger = light automated vehicle)
that opened on 16 May 1983, becoming the first automatic metro line
in the world. The metro system has two lines, with a total length
of 45 km and 60 stations.
The tram system consists of two interurban
tram lines, connecting central Lille to the nearby communities of
Roubaix and Tourcoing, and has 45 stops. 68 urban bus routes cover
the metropolis, 8 of which reach into Belgium.
Railways
Lille is
an important crossroads in the European high-speed rail network: it lies on the
Eurostar line to London and the
French TGV network to Paris, Brussels and other major centres in France such as
Marseille, Lyon, and Toulouse. It has two train
stations, which stand next door to one another: Lille-Europe
station (Gare de
Lille-Europe
), which primarily serves high-speed trains and
international services (Eurostar), and Lille-Flandres station
(Gare de
Lille-Flandres
), which primarily serves lower speed
trains.
Highways
Lille: motorway network.
No fewer than five
autoroutes pass by Lille, the densest
confluence of highways in France after Paris:
A sixth one — the proposed A24 — will link Amiens to Lille if
built, but there is opposition to its route.
Air traffic
Lille
Lesquin International Airport
is 15 minutes from the city centre by car
(11 km). In terms of shipping, it ranks fourth, with
almost 38,000 tonnes of freight which pass through each year.
Waterways
Lille is
the 3rd largest French river port after Paris and Strasbourg. The river Deûle is connected
to regional waterways with over 680 km of navigable
waters. The Deûle connects to Northern Europe via
the River Scarpe
and the
River Scheldt (towards Belgium and the Netherlands), and
internationally via the Lys River
(to Dunkerque and Calais
).
Shipping statistics
| Year |
1997 |
2000 |
2003 |
| Millions of
tonnes |
5.56 |
6.68 |
7.30 |
| By River or
Sea |
8.00% |
8.25% |
13.33% |
| By
Rail |
6.28% |
4.13% |
2.89% |
| By
Road |
85.72% |
87.62% |
83.78% |
Education
With over 110 000 students, the metropolitan area of Lille is one
of the first student cities in France.
- With roots back from 1562 to 1793 as Université de Douai, then as Université
Impériale in 1808, the State Université of Lille (Université Lille Nord de
France) was established in Lille in 1854 with Louis Pasteur as the first dean of its Faculty
of Sciences. A school of medicine and an engineering school were
also established in Lille in 1854. The Université de Lille was
united as the association of existing public Faculties in 1887 and
was split into three independent university campus in 1970,
including:
-
ESA - Ecole Supérieure des Affaires is a Business Management
school established in Lille in 1990. IEP Sciences-Po
Lille political studies institute was established in Lille in
1992.
The
European
Doctoral College Lille Nord-Pas de Calais is headquartered in
Lille metropole and includes 3,000 PhD Doctorate students supported
by university research laboratories.
Miscellaneous
The
Euralille urban development project, centred around the
new TGV station has fostered a long debate among Lille's citizens.
The project has finally been completed with modern
architecture and disruption to the ancient city
centre.
Lille was
elected European Capital of
Culture in 2004, along with the Italian city of Genoa
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Lille is part of the
Urban Community of Lille
Métropole (formerly also known as C.U.D.L.).
Lille's football club, the
Lille O.S.C.,
is one of the major teams in the French football league. They have
won 8 major national trophies and now regularly features in the
UEFA Champions League and
UEFA Cup.
Since 2006, Lille is home to the
Lille Comics Festival, the main
British and American
comic books
convention in the north of France, held in November.
Lille features an array of architectural styles with various
amounts of Flemish influence, including the use of brown and red
brick. In addition, many residential neighborhoods, especially in
Greater Lille, consist of attached 2-3 story houses aligned in a
row, with narrow gardens in the back. These architectural
attributes, many uncommon in France, help make Lille a transition
in France to neighboring Belgium, as well as nearby Netherlands and
England, where the presence of brick, as well as row houses or the
Terraced house is much more
prominent.
Émile Zola's novel Germinal is set near Lille, in
Marchiennes
.
Notable people from Lille
Scientists and entrepreneurs
- Charles-Joseph
Panckoucke, (1736–1788), founder of the :fr:Moniteur Universel, owner of
Mercure de France,
promotor of the Lumières and editor of the Encyclopédie
Méthodique.
- :fr:Antoine
Scrive-Labbe (1789–1864), industrialist in the textile field
and French spy.
- Charles Frédéric
Kuhlmann, (1803–1881), chemist professor, and creator of a
sulfuric acid factory with an
innovative process, as required for textile manufacturing.
- :fr:Auguste Scalbert
(1815-1899), creator of the first Nordiste bank.
- Louis Pasteur,
(1822–1895), dean of the faculty of Science of Lille, inventor of
the pasteurisation process, micro-biologist and pioneer of vaccines
; founder of the Institut
Pasteur
.
- :fr:Alfred Mongy (1840–1914),
moderniser of the city.
- Albert Calmette (1863-1933) and
Camille Guérin (1872–1961),
discovery of the antituberculosis vaccine.
- Jean Baptiste Perrin
(1870-1942), Nobel Prize in physics and
creator of the French CNRS (National
Centre for Scientific Research).
- Jean Dieudonné (1906-1992),
mathematician.
Artists
- Renée Adorée (1898–1933),
actress.
- Alfred-Pierre Agache
(1843–1915), academic painter
- Alain de Lille (or Alanus ab
Insulis) (c. 1128 - 1202), French theologian and poet
- Émile Bernard (1868–1941),
neoimpressionist painter and
friend of Paul Gauguin
- Édouard Chimot (d. 1959),
artist and illustrator, editor of the
Devambez illustrated art-editions.
- Alain Decaux (1925-), television
presenter, minister, writer, and member of the Académie française.
- Pierre De Geyter (1848–1932),
textile worker who composed the music of The Internationale in Lille.
- Raoul de Godewaersvelde
(1928–1977), singer.
- Gabriel Grovlez (1879-1944),
pianist, conductor and composer who studied under Gabriel Fauré
- Alexandre Desrousseaux
(1820–1892), songwriter.
- Carolus-Duran (1837–1917),
painter.
- Julien Duvivier (1896–1967),
director.
- Yvonne Furneaux (1928-),
actress.
- Paul Gachet (1828-1909), doctor most
famous for treating the painter Vincent
van Gogh
- Kamini (1980- ), rap singer, hits success in 2006 in France
with the funny "rural-rap" Marly-Gomont
- Édouard Lalo (1823–1892),
composer.
- Serge Lutens (born 1942)
photographer, make-up artist, interior and set designer, creator of
perfumes and fashion designer.
- Philippe Noiret (1930–2006),
actor.
- Albert Samain (1858–1900),
poet.
Politicians, professionals and military
- Lydéric, (620–?)
legendary founder of the city.
- Jeanne, Countess of
Flanders, (1188/1200? –1244), Countess.
- Jeanne Maillotte, (circa 1580),
resistance fighter during the Hurlu
attacks.
- Louis
Faidherbe (1818–1889), general, founder of the city of Dakar
and
senator.
- Achille Liénart
(1884–1973), « cardinal des ouvriers ».
- Charles de Gaulle (1890–1970),
general, resistance fighter, President of France.
- Roger Salengro (1890–1936),
minister, deputy, and Mayor of Lille.
- Augustin Laurent (1896–1990),
minister, deputy, resistance fighter, and Mayor of Lille.
- Madeleine Damerment
(1917–1944), French Resistance
fighter - Legion of Honor, Croix de Guerre, Médaille combattant
volontaire de la Résistance
- Pierre Mauroy (1928–), deputy,
senator, Prime Minister of
France, and Mayor of Lille.
- Martine Aubry (1950–), deputy,
minister, and Mayor of Lille.
Sports
International Relations
Twin towns - sister cities
Lille is
twinned with:
See also
References
External links