Alençon

Alençon
Alençon
	Town hall of Alençon
	Coat of arms
	Location of Alençon
Country	France
Region	Normandy
Department	Orne
Arrondissement	Alençon
Intercommunality	Alençon
Government
• Mayor (2008–2014)	Joaquim Pueyo
Area 1	10.68 km2 (4.12 sq mi)
Population (1999)	28,935
• Density	2,700/km2 (7,000/sq mi)
Time zone	UTC+01:00 (CET)
• Summer (DST)	UTC+02:00 (CEST)
INSEE/Postal code	61001 /61000
Elevation	127–178 m (417–584 ft) ; (avg. 135 m or 443 ft)
	1 French Land Register data, which excludes lakes, ponds, glaciers > 1 km2 (0.386 sq mi or 247 acres) and river estuaries.

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 July 1858 and spent their whole married life in Alençon, where Thérèse was born in January 1873 and spent her early childhood until the death of her mother in 1877. [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

Arms of Alençon	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:

Anne d'Alençon (1492–1562), marquise of Montferrat ;
Marie-Catherine de Villedieu, (1640–1683), novelist
Pierre Allix (1641–1717), Protestant pastor and author
Léonard Bourdon (1754–1807), Revolutionist
Louis de Frotté, dit « Blondel » (1766–1800), chouan general
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
Raoul Le Mouton de Boisdeffre, 1839–1919, general
Éléonore-Aglaé-Marie Despierres (1843–1895), historian
Adolphe Gérard (1844–1900), american restaurateur
Adhémar Leclère (1853–1917), author
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
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.
Daniel Balavoine (1952–1986), singer and songwriter
Louis Barillet (1880–1948), glass blower
André Couder (1897–1979), astronomer
Alain Lambert (1946–), politician
Anne Consigny (1963–), actress
Yoann Chivard, dit « Yoann », (1971–), graphic artist
Laurence Leboucher (1972–), female cyclist
Lorànt Deutsch (1975–), actor and writer ;
Benoît Tréluyer (1976–), car racer
Jonathan Cochet (1976–), car racer
Anthony Geslin (1980–), cyclist
Orelsan (1982–), rapper
Arnold Mvuemba (1985–) footballer