Bailleul, Nord

Bailleul Belle
Commune
Market place and belfry of Bailleul
Coat of arms
Location of Bailleul
Bailleul Bailleul
Coordinates: 50°44′21″N 2°44′00″E
Country	France
Region	Hauts-de-France
Department	Nord
Arrondissement	Dunkerque
Canton	Bailleul
Intercommunality	Communauté de communes de Flandre Intérieure
Government
• Mayor (2020–2026)	Antony Gautier
Area 1	43.42 km2 (16.76 sq mi)
Population  (2021)	14,869
• Density	340/km2 (890/sq mi)
Time zone	UTC+01:00 (CET)
• Summer (DST)	UTC+02:00 (CEST)
INSEE/Postal code	59043 /59270
Elevation	14–86 m (46–282 ft) (avg. 44 m or 144 ft)
1 French Land Register data, which excludes lakes, ponds, glaciers > 1 km2 (0.386 sq mi or 247 acres) and river estuaries.

Location of Bailleul in the arrondissement of Dunkirk

Bailleul (French pronunciation: [bajœl] ; Belle in Dutch) is a commune in the Nord department in northern France. It is located in French Flanders, 3 km (2 mi) from the Belgian border and 26 km (16 mi) northwest of Lille.

Population

Population of Bailleul since 1793

Year	Pop.	±%
1793	11,576	—
1800	8,944	−22.7%
1806	9,222	+3.1%
1821	9,475	+2.7%
1831	9,823	+3.7%
1836	9,911	+0.9%
1841	9,923	+0.1%
1846	10,141	+2.2%
1851	10,078	−0.6%
1856	10,108	+0.3%
1861	10,102	−0.1%
1866	12,896	+27.7%
1872	12,828	−0.5%
1876	12,968	+1.1%
1881	12,712	−2.0%
1886	13,335	+4.9%
1891	13,276	−0.4%
1896	13,449	+1.3%
1901	13,530	+0.6%
1906	13,573	+0.3%
1911	13,251	−2.4%
1921	6,651	−49.8%
1926	8,545	+28.5%
1931	9,691	+13.4%
1936	10,928	+12.8%
1946	11,352	+3.9%
1954	11,964	+5.4%
1962	12,583	+5.2%
1968	13,077	+3.9%
1975	13,474	+3.0%
1982	13,400	−0.5%
1990	13,847	+3.3%
1999	14,146	+2.2%
2006	13,616	−3.7%
2009	13,989	+2.7%
2011	14,517	+3.8%
2015	14,337	−1.2%

Politics

Presidential Elections 2nd Round

Election		Winning Candidate	Party	%
style="background-color: Template:En Marche!/meta/color" |	2017	Emmanuel Macron	En Marche!	56.30
style="background-color: Template:Socialist Party (France)/meta/color" |	2012	François Hollande	PS	50.87
style="background-color: Template:Union for a Popular Movement/meta/color" |	2007	Nicolas Sarkozy	UMP	51.52
style="background-color: Template:Rally for the Republic/meta/color" |	2002	Jacques Chirac	RPR	82.44

Heraldry

Arms of Bailleul

The arms of Bailleul are blazoned : Gules, a cross vair.

Media

Bailleul is the birthplace of French filmmaker Bruno Dumont and served as the setting for his first two feature films. This area is also a setting in the Timothy Findley book The Wars.

Carnival

The inhabitants of Bailleul celebrate carnival with five days of processions and other festivities. The carnival has taken place since 1853, when the Philanthropic Company of Bailleul was founded. During the event, a search takes place for the needy ones of the city. The Gargantua Giant chairs the festivities, seated on his float and accompanied by his kitchen boys.

At the end of Shrove Tuesday, after the final procession of around 50 floats, with local groups, brass bands and plenty of confetti, Doctor Francisco Piccolissimo tries to cure the excesses of some inhabitants in an unconventional way in front of the town hall, and the festival continues late into the night in the town's cafés and bars.

Points of interest

• Jardin des Plantes Sauvages du Conservatoire botanique national de Bailleul

History

In 1526, Flanders fell to the Spanish Netherlands by the Treaty of Madrid. Under the reign of Philip II, the first religious problems arose between Flanders and Spain.

In the 17th century, Flanders was a permanent battlefield. Louis XIV reconquered Flanders. As a result, Bailleul reverted to France in 1678.

With the Treaty of Utrecht, Flanders and with it Bailleul fell to Austria in 1713, before both finally passed to France in 1745 after the Battle of Fontenoy and the Treaty of Aachen. Numerous fires marked the history of the city.

From the 17th to the 19th century, the bobbin lace craft developed in Bailleul. (La Maison de la Dentelle bobbin lace museum), a craft for which the town is still known far beyond its borders.

During First World War, the area around Bailleul was at times heavily affected by the heavy fighting that German and Allied troops engaged in around the nearby Belgian town of Ypres. When German troops used chlorine gas against the Allied troops near Wulverghem (municipality of Heuvelland, Belgium) on 30 April 1916 over a front length of 3.2 kilometres, the resulting toxic gas cloud extended as far as Bailleul. During the German Spring Offensive in Operation Georgette from 13 April 1918, Bailleul with its old Flemish Town Centre was more than 90 percent destroyed. After the severe destruction of the First World War, the town was rebuilt in the Neo-Flemish style during the 20th century. A typical example of the architectural style, which was widespread throughout Flanders, is the town hall of 1932 with its bell tower.

Railways

Bailleul has a railway station on the line from Lille to Calais and Dunkirk.

International relations

See also: List of twin towns and sister cities in France

Bailleul is twinned with:

• Werne, Germany, since 1967
• Hawick, Scotland, United Kingdom, since 1973
• Izegem, Belgium, since 1992
• Kyritz, Germany, since 2012
• Wałcz, Poland, since 2015

Personalities

• Edmond de Coussemaker
• Pharaon de Winter, painter
• Marguerite Yourcenar, academic
• Jean Delobel, politician
• Michel Delebarre, politician
• Bruno Dumont, director and filmmaker
• Philippe Édouard Léon Van Tieghem, Biologist and botanist born in Bailleul in 1839
• Jean-Luc Samyn, jockey in American thoroughbred racing

See also

• Communes of the Nord department
• French Flanders

References

Sources

• INSEE commune file
• Bailleul city

Notes