Alençon

Alençon
Town hall of Alençon
Alençon
Location within Lower Normandy region  Alençon
Administration
Country	France
Region	Lower Normandy
Department	Orne
Arrondissement	Alençon
Intercommunality	Alençon
Mayor	Joaquim Pueyo (2008–2014)
Statistics
Elevation	127–178 m (417–584 ft) (avg. 135 m/443 ft)
Land area1	10.68 km2 (4.12 sq mi)
Population2	28,935  (1999)
- Density	2,709 /km2 (7,020 /sq mi)
INSEE/Postal code	61001/ 61000
1 French Land Register data, which excludes lakes, ponds, glaciers > 1 km² (0.386 sq mi or 247 acres) and river estuaries.
2 Population without double counting: residents of multiple communes (e.g., students and military personnel) only counted once.

Coordinates: 48°25′50″N 0°05′35″E / 48.4306°N 0.0931°E / 48.4306; 0.0931

Alençon is a commune in Normandy, France, capital of the Orne department. It is situated 105 miles (169 km) west of Paris. Alençon belongs to the intercommunality of Alençon (with 52,000 people).

History

It was probably during the fourth century, while the area was being Christianised, that the city of Alençon was founded. The name is first seen in a document dated in the seventh century. During the tenth century, Alençon was a buffer state between Normandy and the Maine regions. In 1047, William Duke of Normandy, later known as William the Conqueror and king of England, laid siege to the town. The citizens insulted William by hanging animal skins from the walls, in reference to his ancestry as the illegitimate son of Duke Robert and a tanner's daughter. On capturing the town, William had a number of the citizens' hands cut off in revenge. Alençon was occupied by the English during the Anglo-Norman wars of 1113 to 1203.

The city became the seat of a dukedom in 1415, belonging to the sons of the King of France until the French Revolution, and some of them played important roles in French history: see Duke of Alençon. The French Revolution caused relatively little disorder in this area although there were some royalist uprisings nearby.

The fabric industry gave birth to the famous point d'Alençon lace. The economic development of the nineteenth century and the industrial boom was generated by several factories (mills), and transport networks (roads and railways) developed. In the first half of the twentieth century the city developed a flourishing printing industry.

Alençon was home to Marie-Azélie Guérin Martin and Louis Martin, the parents of St. Thérèse of Lisieux. They were the first spouses in the history of the Catholic Church to be proposed for sainthood as a couple, in 2008. Zélie and Louis were married at the Basilica of Notre-Dame in Alençon on 12 and spent their whole married life in Alençon, where Thérèse was born and spent her early childhood years until the death of her mother. [1]

On 17 June 1940 the German Army took occupation of Alençon. On 12 August 1944 Alençon was the first French city to be liberated by the French Army under General Leclerc, after minor bomb damage.

After the war the population sharply increased and new industries settled. Many of these were related to plastics and the town is now a major plastics educational centre.

• 

  La Halle aux Blé

• 

  Chateau des Ducs

• 

  Library

Heraldry

The arms of Alençon are blazoned : Azure, a double-headed eagle displayed Or.

Economy

In the seventeenth century Alençon was chiefly noted for its lace called point d'Alençon.

Today, Alençon is home to a prosperous plastics industry, and, since 1993, to a plastics engineering school.

MPO Fenêtres is a local PVC windows company established in Alençon since 1970, is one of the first company in Alençon with around 170 employees (2009) and a turnover of 28 million euros in 2008. It is also the oldest French PVC windows company still in activity.

Transport

Alençon is linked by the A28 autoroute (motorway/freeway) with the nearby cities of Le Mans to the south (Sarthe) and Rouen (Haute-Normandie) to the north.

The A88 autoroute is due for completion by the end of 2010 and will link the A28 just north of Alençon to the coastal port of Caen.

A comprehensive town bus system operates from 7:00 to 19:00.

There is a comprehensive network of cycle paths.

People

Alençon was the birthplace of:

• Marie-Catherine de Villedieu, (1640–1683), novelist
• Pierre Allix (1641–1717), Protestant pastor and author
• Daniel Balavoine (1952–1986), singer and songwriter
• Edme Castaing (1796–1824), doctor and murderer
• Jacques Hébert (1757–1794), editor of the extreme radical newspaper Le Père Duchesne during the French Revolution
• Jacques-Julien Houtou de Labillardière (1755–1834), botanist
• Juste Lisch (1828–1910), architect
• Thérèse de Lisieux (1873–1897), Roman Catholic nun who was canonised as a saint, and is one of only 33 Doctors of the Church
• Auguste Poulet-Malassis (1825–1878), publisher and friend of Baudelaire
• Laurence Leboucher (22 February 1972), French female cyclist
• Anthony Geslin (9 June 1980), French cyclist
• Arnold Mvuemba footballer
• Marie-Azélie Guérin Martin (1831–1877), the mother of St. Thérèse of Lisieux who, along with her husband Louis Martin, is one of the few married couples ever to be beatified by the Catholic Church.

International relations

See also: List of twin towns and sister cities in France

Twin towns – sister cities

Alençon is twinned with:

• Basingstoke in the United Kingdom
• Koutiala in Mali
• Braine-l'Alleud in Belgium
• Quakenbrück in Germany

See also

Normandy portal

• Alençon lace
• Communes of the Orne department
• Gare d'Alençon

References

• INSEE commune file

External links

• Official town website
• Alençon Tourist Office
• Web site about the life, writings, spirituality, and mission of St. Therese of the Child Jesus of the Holy Face, who was born in Alencon on 2 January 1873; information about the life of her family in Alencon and about pilgrimages to Alencon
• Alencon's citizen portal