Lille tourist information
Lille France
The banks of the Deûle have been inhabited since the end of prehistory. Archeological digs have revealed traces of life in the Mesolithic, Neolithic, Bronze and Iron Ages, followed by the Gallo-Roman epoch. Around 475 BC the ancestors of the people of Lille are living in isolated farms or small hamlets of inhabitants working the land.
At the beginning of the 1st century the territory of Lille is served only by secondary roads, not by any highway connecting towns to each other. From the 1st century BC to the 5th century AD a register is compiled of several dwelling areas. The densest was on the west bank of the river: on either side of the present Solférino Street, between Sacré-Coeur Church and Vauban Boulevard.
In the 9th century Isla is no doubt composed solely of a settlement and a port which is located towards Countess Isle (Îlot Comtesse). There, taxes are levied on the sale of goods. Lille’s future trading role is already taking shape.
As from the year 830 and up to about 910, the Vikings surge into Flanders. Faced with extremely mobile pillagers, defence must be organised locally. This reveals the ineffectiveness of the royal power of Charles the Bald. The immediate consequence is the rise in power of the landed aristocracy. The feudal system at least has the merit of protecting populations in these troubled times.
At the end of the 10th century Lille is not yet a town but it is already expanding at the expense of its neighbours: Fins, Wazemmes and Esquermes
The first written allusions to Lille go back to the middle of the 10th century. It is a place of power containing the residence of the Counts of Flanders, and the island coinage, the « Lille currency » is struck there. A growth in population from the neighbouring villages will soon envelop the town. Lille continues to grow. It absorbs the ancient village of Fins and its Saint-Maurice Church. It creates new parishes to the South (Holy Redeemer) and to the North (Saint-Catherine, Saint-Andrew, Saint-Mary Magdalen).
There are certainly around 30,000 people in Lille in the middle of the 13th century. This rise is explained by unprecedented economic development : the great regional market is held at Lille. Farm products from a very rich low country are bought and sold there. It is also a cloth market. The annual fair attracts merchants from all over Europe.
Lille is rich and its position at the heart of the marshes of the Deûle makes it a stepping stone between Flanders and the Kingdom of France. It attracts the covetousness of the powerful: the King of France tries to subject it several times (before and after the Battle of Bouvines in 1214), as do the English soldiers during the Hundred Years War. And, finally, the Dukes of Burgundy (who have become Counts of Flanders) appropriate Lille between 1369 and 1477.
Under Philip the Good, Lille is repopulated, rebuilt and made more attractive. For in the 14th century Lille has suffered. It has been ravaged by wars, plagues and famines. The 16th century marks its renewal. The boundaries are extended, the new Rihour Palace rises up and churches are rebuilt in the style of the day. Its cynicism will delight its new master, Charles the Fifth, when Lille falls into his coffers in 1506...
Lille gathers in the benefits of the return to calm under the reign of Philip the Handsome (1482-1506). Its textile tradition is reinforced by the rapid development of the manufacture of light fabrics. It is essential to the 16th century on a market swamped with the demand of French and other European customers. As a logical consequence of this dynamism, its population increases. It is soon packed to the limits of its walls.
However, the plague intervenes. Under Charles the Fifth, it strikes Lille six times! In view of the extent of these catastrophes, the most urgent matters are dealt with first. Infested houses are marked with a cross. Those suspected of having the plague can only go outdoors if they carry a 3 to 4 feet long white stick « as a warning to the unaffected to keep away from them »…
Yet Lille wins through. Its vital momentum, carried forward by its factories and workshops, is not broken by these losses - which leads Louis Guichardin to say in his Description of the Low Countries (1567), « Lille is a beautiful and rich town, full of good buildings, great nobility and a large number of stout merchants making high quality goods ».
Lille remained faithful to the Church when, at the end of the 16th century, Catholics and protestants are tearing each other apart. It enters the rather prosperous 17th century which is marked by great artistic activity. The people of Lille order paintings from the nearby Antwerp School: Rubens, Van Dyck and Jordaens. In the streets, wooden houses are gradually replaced by dwellings built from stone and brick. Decorations appear, overladen with fruit, foliage, cornucopia or the heads of cherubs. In 1667 Lille is united with France. It is hardly pleased about it but Louis XIV is subtle enough to disarm the mistrust of the good Flemish subjects. From 1670 Vauban launches into the construction of the citadel and inspires expansion of the town with new districts in the North-West.
Lille’s vocation for business is asserted more than ever in the 18th century. It no longer has the privilege of being the only town authorized to make up all fabrics and it suffers from the competition of neighbouring towns. Its wool manufacture collapses but Lille is saved by diversification of its business activities : lace-making, sugar refineries, china factories etc. However, although businessmen live an opulent life, the ordinary people are having a rough time. Here it is known what poverty means. The 18th century is the age of the enlightened but Lille is not carried away by their philosophy. In Lille the catholic faith and its customs are not disputed. Is that the same as saying that there is a lack of broad-mindedness? The favourable way in which freemasonry is welcomed proves the contrary. The people of Lille have inquiring minds: they unrestrainedly sample the delights of music and the theatre…
On the eve of the 1789 Revolution Lille’s prosperity it an illusion. The textile industry is suffering from English competition and bankruptcies are multiplying. Unemployment is on the increase. Despite riots and unrest, Lille will not really have a people’s revolution. The liberal middle class takes power. But the state of grace of the new town council will not last. The political climate deteriorates and the terrible winter of 1790-1791 heralds the arrival of an opposing power. It will be far more radical. On top of everything else, War. On 20th April 1792 the Legislative Assembly in Paris declares war on the Austrian Netherlands. Lille will be in the front line. The bombardment starts at 3 o’clock in the afternoon of 29th September. The siege of Lille will go on until 6th October… But Lille holds out. To salute it, the Convention unanimously votes the famous decree: « Lille has deserved well of the Motherland ». The Goddess Column bears witness to this acknowledgement.
Between 1800 and 1850 Lille swings back and forth in the world of industry. It enters the contemporary world. Slowed down by the revolutionary crisis, economic life takes off again during the first half of the 19th century.
Dominated by business for a long time, Lille sees textiles in the forefront as the driving force of its economic power. Relinquishing wool, from then on the preserve of Roubaix and Tourcoing, the town specialises in linen and cotton. In 1850, these two sectors are employing 85% of Lille’s workers. Their life is extremely hard : 80 to 90 working hours a week for starvation wages, children in evidence at work everywhere, squalid and unhealthy housing conditions... In the Spring of 1847, 60% of Lille’s workers are unemployed.
Anger rumbles, revolt is not far off. It breaks out on 12th May. It is again a riot over hunger without any revolutionary ideology, without class consciousness. Soon, that will all change…
Between 1850 and 1914 Lille experiences an irresistible rise in its industrial power. Its textile business is among the leaders in the world. Logically, around textiles, other complementary lines appear. The rise is stunning. The conversion of metals quickly becomes the runner-up in Lille’s economy. The capital of Flanders, a great centre of trade, is also a major consumer. Its food industries take a large slice but the laurel wreath still goes to making up textiles.
The first garment factories, set up in the 1850s, experience a continuous and prodigious rise. As a result of the industrial breakthrough, there are more and more people in Lille (75,000 in 1850, 220,000 in 1901). In Lille’s inner suburbs there is a considerable increase, for instance in Hellemmes where the population is multiplied by eleven in sixty years!
In the 19th century the ruling classes are all-powerful while the proletariat is numerous and poor: the social divide is clear. 9% of the population holds 90% of the wealth. The manufacturers and the liberal professions undergo considerable expansion.
The contrast with the situation of the vast majority of the population of Lille is striking. Yet the workers are not those with the greatest complaints : in these years a sub-proletariat has been set adrift: workers’ widows, the unemployed, retired people without any pension etc. The end of the 19th century marks the rise of the middle class: craftsmen and office workers are the embryo of a changing society.
Despite social inequalities, great unity can be seen : rich or poor, the citizen of Lille loves his town. In it there reigns an extraordinary spirit to think, live and survive. So it is that men and women will gather to defend liberty, justice and solidarity. And it is along this difficult road that Lille will achieve greatness.
With the proclamation of the Second Empire, the fight for liberty starts in Lille, symbolised by the Legrand family, true pioneers of the Republic. This movement recruits largely from the bourgoisie, the middle and working classes, which explains its success. Faced with the serious social problems which Lille is experiencing, two movements will come into being : the Christian Employers and the start of Socialism.
Philibert Vrau is the first Christian boss to develop an advanced social policy in his factory, but this paternalism assumes docile workers…
The socialist commitment is profoundly different. At the beginning of the 1880s, three names stand out: Gustave Delory, Gustave Jonquet and Henry Ghesquière, all of them from poor working class families. Their victory at Lille town hall in 1896 (repeated in 1900) launches a municipal socialism policy inspired by the neighbouring Nordic countries. Under the drive of Lille’s Mayor, Gustave Delory, the Northern Socialist Federation becomes one of the strongest in France.
Like everywhere else in France, the heavy losses of the 1914-18 War are terrible. Lille, destroyed, has to be rebuilt. In less than three years, production machinery will be repaired or replaced.
Under the weight of the enormous cost of the war and the reconstruction, the Franc-Gold exchange rate loses its basic value. At the same time, prices soar. It is not surprising that Lille is troubled by social disputes during the Twenties. The Socialist Party has never been stronger. The break with the communist trend is violent and furious. The majority of socialists, shaped by decades of fighting to defend freedom, remains faithful to its ideals.
However, although the people of Lille love politics, that is not the be-all and end-all of life for them. They crowd into theatres and cinemas. The town no longer counts its dim halls; it just keeps on opening new ones. And although there are a great many lovers of classical music in Lille, a whole new generation is discovering the new rhythms of the Foxtrot, the Charleston etc.
In 1925 Gustave Delory chose Roger Salengro to succeed him as Mayor of Lille. He knew the firmness, courage and far-sightedness of this militant socialist. Roger Salengro is the youngest mayor of any large, mainly working class town in France. He rearranges and modernizes Gustave Delory’s social policy.
From 1927 the municipal team develops a complete plan for reorganising the town: knock down the slums, erect the new buildings of the international fair and a great university hospital estate … Roger Salengro is a visionary. He has a modern railway station built, creates the port of Lille and decides on setting up an airport at Marcq-en- Barœul. On Lille are focused the railway, waterway and airway, three factors which, still today, are necessary for its development. The efforts made by the municipal team around Roger Salengro to achieve modernity occur in a climate of relative social peace. The « roaring twenties » stay in the memory as happy times. But, in 1931…
The world crisis, starting in the USA in October 1929, does not spare Lille. The crisis worsens in November 1931 with the devaluation of the Pound Sterling and the US Dollar. Practically non-existent at that time, unemployment goes up from month to month. In 1935 a third of Lille’s population is living in distress and misery.
Soon, another fear arises: France is faced with the confrontation between fascism and anti-fascism. In this difficult climate, many people in Lille are heartened in 1935 by the Popular Front with Léon Blum’s socialist government taking power, and by the social revolution in the Summer of 1936. But misfortune lurks : Roger Salengro commits suicide just shortly before the start of the Second World War.
The war is over and rebuilding must start again. Lille has to dress its wounds. The five years following the war are hard for the people of Lille. Economic pick-up is slow. The International Textile Exhibition in 1951 marks a new take-off for trade and industry.
The second symbol of the revival: the belfry of Lille Town Hall becomes the 4th television transmitter in the world. Augustin Laurent is elected Mayor in 1955. There are four women on his town council. The task is huge. Schools and housing have to be built and the town generally improved. Restructuring of the Holy Redeemer district (Saint-Sauveur) will be the most striking operation of this period.
From 1960 to 1970 the housing crisis is alleviated ; the town concentrates rather on cultural matters and on improving living conditions.
In 1966 the creation of a single Chamber of Commerce for Lille, Roubaix and Tourcoing is a signal: economic life is starting to be organised on a wider scale.
The urban community is born in 1967. It completes the mechanism leading to the metropolis. There then starts a period of intense transformation. In 1977 the town of Helemmes joins forces with Lille. The city is divided into districts with district town halls and district councils. A way of retrieving the memory of the « lost village ».
These are also years of crisis. Numerous jobs in manufacture disappear. Companies leave Lille for the outskirts. The same phenomenon for housing. Result: in the centre there is a smaller and ageing population. Lille then turns towards service industries. A change which sets off new dynamism and is to transform the face of the city.
The year 1993 is of paramount importance. The arrival of the High Speed Train and the drilling of the Channel Tunnel place Lille at the heart of Business Europe.
With the construction of Euralille, the conversion of the town-and with it the whole metropolis-changes into top gear. The railway station district becomes the barometer of a new urban life on the metropolitan scale. This evolution would have been impossible but for the turn taken by the Urban Community, presided over by Pierre Mauroy since 1989. Completion of the metro in the direction of Mons-en-Barœul, Roubaix and Tourcoing is one of the symbols of this.
Having become the heart of a metropolis of over one million inhabitants, Lille is going into the 21st century by becoming the European Capital of Culture for 2004. Another symbol...
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