Hauts-de-France is a French region that was created on January 1,
2016 by merging the former regions of Nord-Pas-de-Calais and Picardy.
From January to September 2016, it was provisionally named
Nord-Pas-de-Calais-Picardie.
With 31,813 square kilometers,
Hauts-de-France is the eighth largest region by area (excluding overseas
regions) and has 5,997,734 inhabitants (as of 2020), making it the third
largest region by population. It is divided into the five departments
Aisne (No. 02), Nord (59), Oise (60), Pas-de-Calais (62) and Somme (80).
It borders (clockwise) with Belgium and the regions of Grand Est,
Île-de-France and Normandy.
The administrative center of the
region is Lille.
Abbeville: A historic town in the Somme
department, famous for its Gothic Collegiate Church of Saint-Vulfran and
proximity to the Bay of Somme, a UNESCO-listed natural site. It played a
role in medieval trade and was heavily impacted by both world wars, now
serving as a gateway to coastal birdwatching and eco-tourism.
Albert: Located in the Somme, this town is
synonymous with World War I battlefields, including the Somme Offensive.
Its Basilica of Notre-Dame de Brebières features a iconic golden Virgin
Mary statue that was damaged during the war, symbolizing resilience;
today, it's a pilgrimage site with museums like the Somme 1916 Museum.
Amiens: The capital of the Somme department and a
major cultural hub, renowned for its UNESCO-listed Notre-Dame Cathedral,
one of the largest Gothic structures in the world. Home to author Jules
Verne, it boasts colorful floating gardens (hortillonnages), a vibrant
student scene, and hosts an annual Christmas market; historically, it
was a key textile center.
Arras: As the capital
of Pas-de-Calais, Arras features stunning Flemish-Baroque squares
(Grand'Place and Place des Héros) with UNESCO-listed belfries. It was a
frontline city in WWI, with underground tunnels (boves) used as
barracks—now explorable at the Wellington Quarry museum—and is known for
its lively festivals and proximity to Vimy Ridge memorial.
Bavay: A small commune in the Nord department
with deep Roman roots, housing the Ancient Forum of Bagacum, an
archaeological site showcasing ruins from Gaul's era. It was an
important crossroads in antiquity and now offers a museum on Roman
history, appealing to archaeology enthusiasts.
Beauvais:
In the Oise department, famous for the unfinished Cathedral of
Saint-Pierre, boasting the highest Gothic vault in Europe at 48 meters.
A center for tapestry weaving (home to the National Tapestry Gallery),
it has a rich medieval history and hosts cultural festivals; it's also
near Paris-Beauvais Airport, serving low-cost flights.
Belle Église: A quaint commune in Oise, named
for its beautiful 12th-century church with Romanesque elements. It's a
peaceful rural spot with historical ties to local nobility, offering
scenic countryside walks and proximity to larger sites like Chantilly.
Boulogne-sur-Mer: France's largest fishing port in
Pas-de-CLille
alais, with a maritime heritage dating back to Roman times
(ancient Gesoriacum). Key attractions include the Nausicaä Centre
National de la Mer aquarium, medieval ramparts, and a lively old town;
it was a Napoleonic base and features beaches along the Opal Coast.
Calais: A major ferry port in Pas-de-Calais connecting to the UK via the
Channel Tunnel, known for Rodin's "Burghers of Calais" sculpture
commemorating a 14th-century siege. It has a WWII history, including
coastal defenses, and today offers beaches, shopping, and the Lace
Museum highlighting its industrial past.
Chantilly: An elegant town
in Oise, celebrated for the Renaissance Château de Chantilly, which
houses the Condé Museum with masterpieces like Raphael's works. Famous
as the birthplace of Chantilly cream and a horse-racing center with the
Great Stables (largest in Europe), it has royal ties and beautiful
forests for outdoor activities.
Compiègne: In Oise, site of the
opulent Château de Compiègne, a former royal and imperial palace used by
Napoleon. Historically pivotal for the 1918 WWI Armistice signing in a
nearby forest clearing (and WWII events), it features vast woodlands for
hiking and hosts equestrian events.
Douai: A former mining and
university town in Nord, with a UNESCO belfry and the 18th-century
Palais de Justice. Known for its carillon concerts and the Gayant giants
festival (UNESCO intangible heritage), it has Flemish influences and
industrial history tied to coal.
Dunkirk (Dunkerque): A coastal city
in Nord, eternally linked to the 1940 WWII evacuation (Operation
Dynamo), dramatized in films. It features sandy beaches, a UNESCO belfry
at Saint-Éloi Church, and a famous carnival; as a major port, it has
maritime museums and modern wind energy developments.
Laon: The
hilltop capital of Aisne, with a stunning Gothic cathedral dominating
its medieval old town. Once a Carolingian capital, it offers panoramic
views, underground passages, and ramparts; it's less touristy but rich
in history from the Middle Ages to WWI.
Le Touquet: Nicknamed
"Paris-Plage," this upscale seaside resort in Pas-de-Calais is known for
its Art Deco villas, wide sandy beaches, and golf courses. Developed in
the Belle Époque era, it attracts affluent visitors for equestrian
sports, casinos, and nature reserves like the Bay of Canche.
Lens: In
Pas-de-Calais, a former coal-mining hub transformed by the Louvre-Lens
museum, an outpost of the Paris Louvre showcasing rotating exhibits. It
honors its industrial past at mining heritage sites and is famed for its
passionate RC Lens football club and stadium.
Lille: The vibrant
capital of Hauts-de-France in Nord, a former industrial powerhouse now a
cultural metropolis with Flemish architecture in Vieux-Lille. Home to
universities, the Palais des Beaux-Arts museum, and bustling markets, it
has a history as a trading center and hosts the massive Braderie flea
market annually.
Montreuil: Often called Montreuil-sur-Mer (though
inland now), this walled town in Pas-de-Calais inspired Victor Hugo's
Les Misérables. With medieval ramparts, a citadel, and charming streets,
it's a historic gem offering views over the Canche Valley and local
gastronomy.
Neufchâtel-Hardelott: A coastal commune in Pas-de-Calais
blending the village of Neufchâtel with Hardelot-Plage resort. Features
the English-style Hardelot Castle (now a cultural center), golf courses,
and beaches; it has Anglo-French history, including ties to British
aristocracy and WWII fortifications.
Saint-Quentin: In Aisne, noted
for its Art Deco reconstruction after WWI destruction and the grand
Basilica of Saint-Quentin. A textile and industrial center with
Champs-Élysées park, it hosts music festivals and is near WWI sites like
the Chemin des Dames battlefield.
Wolfsschluct
II: Not a city but a
WWII Nazi bunker complex near Margival in Aisne, built as one of Adolf
Hitler's field headquarters. Used briefly in 1944 for overseeing the
Normandy invasion response, it's a fortified site with massive concrete
structures, now a historical monument open for guided tours on military
history.
When the region was formed in January 2016, it was given the
provisional name of Nord-Pas-de-Calais-Picardie. This name is formed
from the alphabetical order of the merged regions. The regional council
had until June 30 to decide on a final name. In March 2016 he decided on
the name Hauts-de-France (German translation: Upper France/High France)
with the subtitle Nord-Pas-de-Calais-Picardie. This was confirmed
without the subtitle on September 28, 2016 by the Conseil d'État and
came into force the following day.
Instead of Hauts-de-France,
internet polls also suggested Flandres-Artois-Picardie and Nord-Picardie
as possible names.
By plane
Lille Airport (IATA: LIL) is in the region, with some
medium-haul connections (Europe, North Africa), but no direct
connections from German-speaking countries, and Beauvais-Tillé Airport
(IATA: BVA), which is mainly served by low-cost airlines. Nearest major
airports, just south of the region, are the major Paris Charles de
Gaulle Airport (IATA: CDG) with direct TGVs to Arras and Lille (50
minutes). Brussels-Zaventem Airport (IATA: BRU) (1h10 by train to Lille)
is also an alternative for the north of the region.
The region essentially occupies portions of vast sedimentary basins:
part of the Paris basin in particular, and part of the Flanders basin.
There is no separation between the two on the surface, these two basins
are continuous for part of the geological series that compose them. The
conventional limit on the surface is made up of the hills of Artois and
the threshold of Bapaume.
The subsoil of the region is dominated
by Cretaceous formations. The Upper Cretaceous, which covers by far the
largest area, is marked by a particular limestone rock: chalk. However,
it is often hidden under a layer of silt (loess), deposited in the
Quaternary, which promotes the wealth of agriculture. Chalk was once
used as building stone and limestone in much of the region, as many
underground quarries bear witness to this. These formations open to the
west on the lower Cretaceous and underlying Jurassic (and occasionally
Paleozoic) formations in the inlets of Boulonnais and the Pays de Bray,
where more varied substrates outcrop, including quality clays. which
fueled ceramic production in these two regions. The Jurassic also
emerges in Thiérache, but this time it is the northern end of the
Jurassic aureole of the Paris Basin which points in the region. There
are two important areas covered by Tertiary sediments: the plain of
Flanders in the northeast of the region where we find mainly clays and
sands (which were used to produce the bricks which strongly characterize
the architecture of this part of the region), and in the south (former
Île-de-France) where the substrates are varied according to the
outcropping layers: clays, sands, sandstones, and Lutetian limestones.
The Lutetian limestones have been exploited on a large scale for
centuries for the production of freestone, it is the main building stone
historically used in the south of the region and in Paris (including
Saint-Leu stone from the valley of Oise), then in the rest of the region
where it was exported from the 19th century to Lille to replace chalk in
constructions. The Tertiary also forms witness mounds that are often
sandy (sometimes with hard sandstone, having been used to produce
cobblestones and used in ancient architecture for foundations and
bases), scattered over the Cretaceous terrain3.
The Paleozoic,
located under the more recent terrains, was massively exploited at depth
for its coal in the mining basin of Nord-Pas-de-Calais (around Lens and
Douai) between the end of the 17th and the end of the 20th century.
The Avesnois and a small portion of the adjoining Thiérache form a
territory geologically differentiated from the rest of the region. More
or less deformed Paleozoic rocks outcrop there: sandstone, shales, hard
limestone (blue stone, used in local architecture), etc. We are no
longer here in the sedimentary basins themselves but in the foothills of
the Ardennes.
The relief is quite low: the average altitude is about 98 meters, which places the region in 11th place among the 13 in mainland France. The maximum altitude is 295 meters, reached at Watigny in the Aisne, not far from the Ardennes plateau4. This one is nevertheless quite varied, shared between the very low reliefs of the plain of Flanders, fairly flat low plateaus (Santerre, Cambraisis) and various plateaus a little higher notched by many valleys, as in the Soissonais, the Valois, the Omois, the watersheds of the coastal rivers of Picardy and Artois (Somme basin, Bresle, Authie, Canche with the country of the Seven Valleys, the Aa), as well as other hilly landscapes such as Boulonnais, Avesnois, Thiérache, Laonnois, Noyonnais, Beauvaisis, etc.
The climate of the Hauts-de-France region is an oceanic climate. From
one end of the region to the other, this climate presents nuances in the
course of the seasons and in its local varieties, which combine
altitudes, plains and valleys, sheltered or exposed slopes, proximity or
distance from the coast, etc.
On the coasts of the English
Channel and the North Sea, the oceanic character is very marked. The
thermal amplitudes are low, which gives relatively mild winters with
little snow and cool summers. The weather is variable because of the
very frequent and sometimes violent winds, which influence the climate
depending on their direction.
Moving away from the coasts, the
climate retains the same characteristics as that of the coasts, while
gradually approaching the continental climate, with less wind, more
marked temperature differences and more days of frost and snow.
Temperatures recorded in Hauts-de-France are increasing on average at
the rate of +0.29°C per decade.
The region is made up of several historical and cultural provinces,
partially or totally. Most of the territory is occupied by Picardy,
which includes most of the Somme, Oise, Aisne, but also the sea coast of
Pas-de-Calais, from Montreuil to Calais. Its main cities are Amiens,
Saint-Quentin, Beauvais, Boulogne, Calais and Soissons. There is also a
piece of historic Île-de-France, to the south-west of Oise, with French
Vexin around Chaumont-en-Vexin, a piece of Champagne is also present in
the far south. of the Aisne around Château-Thierry. This is a part of
Brie.
Further north is Artois in Pas-de-Calais, around Arras,
Béthune, Saint-Omer and Hesdin. We will also note the Cambrésis, a small
traditional autonomous country which constitutes the surroundings of
Cambrai, a piece of Hainaut which is called French Hainaut (the other
part is in Belgium) extends around Valenciennes and Maubeuge. Finally,
we have French Flanders which is subdivided into Romanesque Flanders,
around Lille, called Romanesque because of its local Picardy dialect,
and Flamingo Flanders, because of its local Flemish speech, which is
also called French Westhoek , which includes Dunkirk and Hazebrouck.
From the seventeenth century, these territories were grouped together
under the name of the French Netherlands, because they were new
acquisitions made by France from the Spanish Netherlands, these
so-called Spanish Netherlands thus became French stockings.
Until
the 18th century, the region was divided into several general and
particular governments, administrative entities of the Ancien Régime
which were authoritative at the military level. At the time, these were
the governments of Picardy (around Amiens, Saint-Quentin, Boulogne and
Calais), French Flanders, which included, in addition to French
Flanders, Hainaut. The government of Artois (around Arras, Lens and
Béthune), while the government of Île-de-France overflowed into the
southern half of the province of Picardy, thus taking cities such as
Beauvais, Compiègne, Soissons or Laon, which are however not cities of
Île-de-France, but of Picardy. This presence of territories belonging to
Picardy in the government of Île-de-France will be underlined on several
occasions by the cartographers of Louis XIV, by the Encyclopédie of
Diderot and d'Alembert, or by authors such as Robert de Hesseln . The
government of Champagne, meanwhile, then owned Château-Thierry. The
French Revolution will mark the creation of the current departments and
the abolition of general military governments.
The border
position of Hauts-de-France has made it a strategic economic and
military place. It has always been at the heart of major conflicts.
In his column of June 3, 2014, President François Hollande laid the
foundations for the territorial reform of 2014. He then proposed going
from 22 to 14 metropolitan regions. The map attached to the gallery
indicates that Nord-Pas-de-Calais would remain as it was while Picardy
would merge with Champagne-Ardenne.
The socialist Claude Gewerc,
president of the regional council of Picardy, then said he was "very
surprised" at the announced marriage of his region with its neighbor
from Champagne. He adds that of the three possibilities of gathering
(Normandy, Nord-Pas-de-Calais and Champagne-Ardenne), the latter did not
have “[his] preference”. Christophe Coulon, president of the UMP group
at the regional council, for his part criticizes the reform and notes,
despite commonalities, that there is neither "economic" nor "human" flow
between the two regions. Several elected members of the party also asked
for the organization of a referendum, in particular Xavier Bertrand.
Barbara Pompili, co-president of the environmental group in the
National Assembly and deputy for the Somme, believes that the non-merger
between Picardie and Nord-Pas-de-Calais is the result of François
Hollande's desire not to give "a large region to Marine Le Pen ". She
adds that the merger with Nord-Pas-de-Calais “would not be joyful, but
it would be logical”. The FN elected representatives of the Picard
regional council also criticized the reform and indicated that the
non-marriage between Picardy and Nord-Pas-de-Calais was a
"politico-electoral" will of the president in order to avoid the taking
of the new region by the party.
On the northern side, like Daniel
Percheron, the entire regional majority welcomes the region's autonomy:
the entity is large enough in the eyes of political leaders. This
position is also defended by Philippe Rapeneau, leader of the regional
opposition. The northern frontists join for their part their colleagues
from Picardy.
On June 18, 2014, the bill was tabled by the
Minister of the Interior, Bernard Cazeneuve, in the Senate, then with a
majority on the left. The map proposed by the ministry is the same as
that of the grandstand. On July 10, 2014, Carlos Da Silva presented a
new piece of legislation on behalf of the National Assembly's Law
Commission. The accompanying map once again presents the merger of
Picardy with the Champagne-Ardenne region and the autonomy of
Nord-Pas-de-Calais.
The division of the regions was amended during the preparatory work
of the lower house and, on July 15, 2014, article 1 put to the vote
resulted in the merger of Nord-Pas-de-Calais with Picardy, while
Champagne-Ardenne joined Lorraine and Alsace.
This marriage
immediately provoked an outcry from the main socialist elected
representatives of the Nord department. Thus, in a press release, the
mayor of Lille Martine Aubry and the majority of the socialist deputies
of the department define this union as an “economic and social
aberration”. This position is defended by the Republican Éric Woerth,
mayor of Chantilly in the Oise, who believes that the interests of his
department are in Paris and not in Lille.
On the other hand, many
elected officials are more enthusiastic. The reunion of two culturally
and economically close regions, as well as the reunification of historic
Picardy are underlined. For Claude Gewerc, it is “already a better
solution” than the one previously proposed. On the right, Gérald
Darmanin, mayor of Tourcoing, Daniel Fasquelle, mayor of Le
Touquet-Paris-Plage, and Xavier Bertrand, indicated that they were in
favor of the union of the two regions. While being opposed to the
territorial reform, the elected representatives of the National Front,
like Florian Philippot, declared themselves satisfied with the merger
which would offer them an “almost assured” victory in the next regional
elections.
Despite several amendments restoring the autonomy of
the two regions tabled, among others by Bernard Roman, the National
Assembly voted on the first reading of the bill on July 23, 2014 during
the solemn vote. Neither the passage before the two assemblies in second
reading, nor in a mixed parity commission, nor in new reading before the
two chambers, nor in final reading in the National Assembly having
modified the union between the two regions, the marriage is officially
endorsed by the vote of December 17, 2014. As the Constitutional Council
did not censor the law, its promulgation in the official journal on
January 17, 2015 confirms the birth of the “Nord-Pas-de-Calais-Picardie”
region. on January 1, 2016, whose capital is Lille.
The name "Nord-Pas-de-Calais-Picardie" was not intended to be
definitive. Juxtaposing the names of the former regions in alphabetical
order, it was the one retained by law while waiting for a new name to be
chosen by decree in the Council of State on a proposal from the regional
council of the merged region, a decision to be taken before July 1 2016.
The goal was to choose a simple and short name that could be exported
abroad and easily registered by all French people, while taking into
account the significant diversity of the territories in the region. Some
also recommended setting aside all designations including a cardinal
point name (North, Grand Est, Sud-Ouest) so as not to "confiscate" them
from everyday French (which, moreover, has always been lacking in the
Department of North).
From February 22 to 29, 2016, a
consultation is organized in high schools and learning centers in the
region to propose a new name. Following this consultation, three names
were selected by the regional council: “Hauts-de-France”,
“Nord-de-France” and “Terres du Nord”. The notion of “top” of the map of
France as a synonym for the north of the country attracts their
attention. To choose between these three proposals, the regional council
set up an online consultation, in which all the inhabitants of the
region could participate. Of the 55,000 participants, 21,151 (38.4%)
chose Hauts-de-France.
During the plenary session of the regional
assembly on March 14, 2016, the regional council adopted the name
"Hauts-de-France". This name was validated by the Council of State on
September 28, 2016.
It is nevertheless criticized by many
historians and geographers. Historically, this denomination excludes any
toponymy of the territories that make up the new region (Picardy,
Artois, Flanders, etc.). As for geography, the term “haut”, and a
fortiori its plural “les Hauts de” relates in French to the upstream of
a river or to the altitude of a region. This name therefore confuses
altitude and latitude, even though the highest point of this new
territorial community in northern France is the second lowest in the
country, not exceeding 300 meters above sea level.