Everything about Nord-pas De Calais totally explained
During the Middle Ages, the Pas-de-Calais department comprised
County of Boulogne and the
County of Artois, while Nord department is mostly made up of the southern portions of the
County of Flanders and the
County of Hainaut. Boulogne, Artois, and Flanders were fiefs of the French crown, while Hainaut was within the
Holy Roman Empire.
Calais, from 1347 to 1558, when it was recovered by the French throne, was an English possession. In the 15th century all of the territories, except Calais, were united under the rule of the
Dukes of Burgundy, along with other territories in northern France and areas in what is now
Belgium,
Luxembourg, and the
Netherlands. With the death of the Burgundian duke
Charles the Bold in 1477, the Boulonnais and Artois were seized by the French crown, while Flanders and Hainaut were inherited by Charles's daughter
Marie. Shortly thereafter, in 1492, Artois was ceded back to Marie's son
Philip the Handsome, as part of an attempt to keep Philip's father, Emperor
Maximilian I, neutral in French King
Charles VIII's prospective invasion of Italy.
Thus, most of the territories of what is now Nord-Pas de Calais were reunited to the Burgundian inheritance, which had passed through Marie's marriage to the
House of Habsburg. These territories formed an integral part of the
Seventeen Provinces of the Netherlands as they were defined during the reign of Philip's son,
Emperor Charles V, and passed to Charles's son,
Philip II of Spain. When the
Netherlands revolted against Spanish rule, beginning in 1566, the territories in what is now Nord-Pas de Calais were those most loyal to the throne, and proved the base from which the
Duke of Parma was able to bring the whole southern part of the Netherlands back under Spanish control.
During the wars between France and Spain in the 17th century (
1635-1659,
1667-1668,
1672-1678,
1688-1697), these territories became the principal seat of conflict between the two states. French control over the area was gradually established - Artois was annexed in 1659, and most of the current Nord department had been acquired by the
Treaty of Nijmegen in 1678. The current borders were mostly established by the time of the
Treaty of Ryswick in 1697.
The area, previously divided among the French provinces of
Flanders,
Artois, and
Picardy, was divided into its present two departments following the
French Revolution of 1789.
During the 19th century, the region underwent major industrialisation and became one of the leading industrial regions of France, second only to
Alsace-Lorraine. Nord-Pas de Calais was barely touched by the
Franco-Prussian War of 1870; indeed, the war actually helped it to cement its leading role in French industry due to the loss of Alsace-Lorraine to
Germany. However, it suffered catastrophic damage in the two World Wars of the 20th century. In the
First World War, much of the region was occupied by
Germany. Many of its towns and hundreds of square miles of land were wrecked in four years of
trench warfare, with the region suffering more damage than any other part of France. Germany occupied it again in the
Second World War and used the region as a launching base for attacks on
England by the
Luftwaffe and the
V-1 and
V-2 missile systems. Heavy Allied bombing and fighting on the ground again devastated many of the region's towns. Although most of the region was liberated in September 1944, Dunkirk wasn't liberated until
9 May 1945, making it the last French town to be freed from German occupation. The region's conflicted history is memorialised in numerous war cemeteries and memorials, such as the
Vimy Memorial at
Vimy Ridge, which is
Canada's most important memorial to its fallen soldiers.
Since the war, the region has suffered from severe economic difficulties (see Economy below) but has benefitted from the opening of the
Channel Tunnel and the growth in cross-Channel traffic in general.
Demographics
While the region is predominantly French-speaking, it also has two significant
minority language communities: the western
Flemings, whose presence is evident in the many Dutch placenames in the area and who speak
French Flemish, a variety of the
West Flemish dialect of
Dutch, and the Picards, who speak the
Picard language or
ch'ti and
chitimi are working to revive the nearly-extinct regional speech since the 1980s. While the neighbouring country Belgium currently recognizes and fosters both Picard and Dutch and a few city level governments within the Nord-Pas de Calais have introduced initiatives to encourage both languages, the national French government maintains a policy of linguistic unity and generally ignores both groups . There are an estimated 20,000 daily and 40,000 occasional users of Flemish in Nord-Pas de Calais, primarily around the arrondissement of Dunkirk.
In addition, the region's ethnic diversity has been affected by repeated waves of immigrant workers from abroad -
Belgians and
Welsh from Britain before 1910;
Poles,
Czechs and
Italians in the 1920s and 1930s; North Africans since 1945; some thousand descendants of
Chinese ditch diggers and railroad crews hired by French government contractors in
World War I; and a small population of
Turks since the 1960s settled in the region.
The French state has also sought to boost the region's relatively neglected culture; in 2004, it was announced that a branch of the
Louvre would be opened in the city of Lens. For decades, the Nord/Pas-de-Calais was thought of as culturally
conservative, but the region currently has
liberal tendencies. In the early 2000s, the leftist French
Green Party won the largest number of votes to nearly carry a majority in regional and local representation.
The region's religious profile is representative of France with the majority (85%) being
Roman Catholic, but not every member regularly attends church or practices every element of Catholicism. Other Christian groups are found in the region:
Protestants,
Eastern Orthodox and
Mormons have a few churches. North Africans have introduced
Islam to the region, and there are also small but growing communities of
Buddhists and
Hindus in recent years. In
World War II, 18,000 of the region's French
Jews were victims of the
Nazi occupation, but the small
Jewish community remains active as it has for thousands of years.
Economy
Nord-Pas de Calais became a major centre of heavy industry in the 19th century with
coal mines,
steel mills and traditional
textile manufacture. It suffered badly in both World Wars and recovered less quickly than did other parts of France. In recent years, it has experienced economic slumps as the mines closed, the steel industry declined and the textile industry ran into problems. Between 1975-1984, the region lost over 130,000 jobs and unemployment rose to 14% of the working population, well above the national average. The region has, however, benefited from major government and
European Union investment over the past 20 years. The opening of the
Channel Tunnel in 1994 was welcomed in the region as a means of boosting its prosperity. Tourism, particularly in
Lille at the apex of the London-Brussels-Paris railway lines, has grown considerably, to the extent that in 2004, 7 million passengers used the
Eurostar, as well as 2 million vehicles on the
Eurotunnel (formerly
Le Shuttle). In addition to the trains, in 2002, there were about 15 million passengers from the three major ferry ports of the region (
Calais,
Dunkerque and
Boulogne-sur-Mer).
Major communities
Notes and references
Further Information
Get more info on 'Nord-pas De Calais'.
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