Bobigny is a French commune with 53,640 inhabitants (as of January 1, 2017) in the Seine-Saint-Denis department, of which it is the capital. It is located east of the capital Paris. Its inhabitants are called Balbyniens.
Archaeological excavations at Vache a l'aise. A wooden statue has
already been found.
The SNCF train station - Gare de Bobigny
(Grande Ceinture) - (out of order; place of the deportation of Jews,
21 train transports of prisoners from Drancy started here) is a
listed building.
The human presence in this place since the Gallic period is
attested by the discovery of an archaeological site at a place
called the Cow in Aise. Excavations have brought to light a Gallic
statue from the 4th century BC, the first discovery in France.
In the 6th century, Bobigny was mentioned in the will of Lady
Erminéthrude, who bequeathed to her son half of the herds and
agricultural implements she owned there.
In the Middle Ages,
the territory was divided into two strongholds; one belongs to the
lords of Livry and the other to the abbey of Saint-Denis. The
village consists of a castle, a church and a few modest peasant
dwellings. A few great noble families succeeded each other over the
centuries: the Perdriel in the sixteenth and seventeenth century,
the Jacquiers de Vieumaison in the eighteenth century, who owned a
castle.
In 1789, Bobigny became a small town of two hundred
souls, living mainly from cereal cultivation. In 1870, during the
siege of Paris, the town was completely destroyed. The population
takes refuge in Paris, while the Prussians invade the ruins of the
village. Father Ferret relates: “Most of the houses no longer have a
roof or floor; the church is absolutely smashed. In the street, it
rains tiles and chimney pipes ”.
In 1841, the town (then
spelled Baubigny) is described as “A short distance from Bondy, we
find in a plain, near the Ourcq canal, the village of Baubigny, of a
very ancient origin, since is mentioned at the same time as Bondy,
under the name of Babiniacum, in the charter of the year 700 which I
have already cited.
The oldest known lord of Baubigny, was a
gentleman commensal to Abbé Suger. Part of this seigneury was in
fact the responsibility of the abbot of Saint-Denis; the other
depended on the stronghold of Livry.
The church of Baubigny,
under the invocation of Saint André, had for priest Jean Bonneau,
chaplain of Etienne Pourcher, bishop of Paris, and later attached to
the person of King Charles VII. Father Bonneau was assassinated on
July 13, 1504, and buried in his church, which was demolished in the
last century.
There was in Baubigny a rather beautiful castle
which was destroyed. In the middle of the park which still exists,
three springs gush out which give birth to the Ru de Montfort. "
The arrival of the railway at the end of the 19th century
brought new growth to the town. The market gardening village becomes
a workers' city with the installation of businesses calling on a
strong workforce. The housing crisis led to the construction of
several housing estates. From 1920, the inhabitants elected
Communist municipalities, and the city was an integral part of the
"red suburb" of Paris.
In 1920, the Meccano factory moved to
rue Henri-Barbusse (route des Petits Ponts); in 1951, it was able to
produce more than 500,000 boxes of Meccano per day.
In 1933,
Bobigny became famous for the high tower of the production workshops
of the newspaper L'Illustration, installed in the middle of
cultivated fields. At that time, the city was one of the market
gardening villages in the Paris region. From now on, the University
of Paris 13 with the IUT of Bobigny and the faculty of medicine
occupy the site of the former printing press of the newspaper.
Likewise, just next to this IUT (a few tens of meters) is the
Faculty of Medicine of Bobigny, also called FR Léonard-de-Vinci. The
L'Illustration building itself is used by first year medical
students (PCEM1) since they have been teaching there in the R600
amphitheater since 2006.
During the Second World War, fifteen
thousand Jews left Bobigny station for the Auschwitz camp. The place
has since become a memorial.
In a decade, from 1954 to 1964,
the population of Bobigny doubled, going from 18,500 to 37,000
inhabitants. This rapid increase led to the establishment of a vast
program of construction of equipment and social housing:
In 1954,
Georges Candilis built the Emmaüs de l'Étoile city
In 1957, the
architect Émile Aillaud was entrusted with the construction of the
city of l'Abreuvoir on the territory of Bobigny and the city of
Courtillières on the territory of Pantin on behalf of the public
housing office of the department of the Seine
In 1958,
Charles-Gustave Stoskopf, Arthur Heaume and Alexandre Persitz built
the city of Pont-de-Pierre.
On January 1, 1968, Bobigny
became the capital of the new department of Seine-Saint-Denis with
the creation of the departments of the inner suburbs. The prefecture
was built in 1971. In October and November 1972 the Bobigny trial
took place, the trial of a minor who had an abortion after a rape,
which became a platform for women's rights and the decriminalization
of abortion. The Paris Metro arrived in Bobigny in 1985, the tramway
in 1992 and the A 86 was inaugurated in 1998 by Jean-Claude Gayssot,
former MP for Bobigny and then Minister of Equipment, Transport and
Housing.
At the start of the 21st century, the municipality is
implementing many projects for the future, in particular the
rehabilitation of housing by destroying certain towers and replacing
them with new constructions on a more human scale, or even a "City
of la Terre ”devoted to the environment and sustainable development
on the banks of the canal.
During the urban riots of November
2005, the city, capital of the department where the violence began,
was relatively preserved, a situation that the municipality explains
by the frequent neighborhood meetings and the many consultation
structures put in place since 1998. Nevertheless, the city has a
high crime rate for Seine-Saint-Denis, and among the highest in
France. The city has been the scene of the Saïd Bourarach affair
from 2010.
Line 5 of the Métro Paris has ended in the Bobigny - Pablo Picasso station since 1985. The penultimate station Bobigny - Pantin - Raymond Queneau is also located in the municipality. In 1992 the place was reached by the tram line T1, which runs on the first tram line put into operation in the greater Paris area after the Second World War. In Bobigny - Pablo Picasso it has a connection to Métrolinie 5.