Bailleul, Nord

Bailleul ("Belle" in Dutch) is a small commune of the Nord "département", in France, located in French Flanders near Lille. It has 17,191 inhabitants including its nearby hamlets.

The commune includes a historic building, schools and two colleges.

Bailleul is the birthplace of French filmmaker Bruno Dumont and served as the setting for his first two feature films. This area is also a setting in the Timothy Findley book The Wars.

=Twin towns=

* Hawick,Scotland

Carnival

The inhabitants of Bailleul celebrate carnival with five days of processions and other festivities.The carnival has taken place since 1853, when the Philanthropic Company of Bailleul was founded. During the event, a search takes place for the needy ones of the city. The Gargantua Giant chairs the festivities, seated on his float and accompanied by his kitchen boys.

At the end of Shrove Tuesday, after the final procession of around 50 floats, with local groups, brass bands and plenty of confetti, Doctor Francisco Piccolissimo tries to cure the excesses of some inhabitants in an unconventional way in front of the town hall, and the festival continues late into the night in the town's cafés and bars.

Famous inhabitants

* Edmond de Coussemaker
* Pharaon de Winter, painter
* Marguerite Yourcenar : Academic
* Jean Delobel : Politician
* Michel Delebarre : Politician
* Bruno Dumont : Director et filmmaker
* Philippe Édouard Léon Van Tieghem, Biologist and botanist born in Bailleul in 1839