The Roche-sur-Yon

the Roche-sur-Yon (in Poitevin-saintongeais the Rock known Yun ) is a common French, Préfecture of the department of the the Vendée in the area Pays of the Loire.

Its inhabitants is called the Residents of La Roche-sur-Yon.

Geography

the Roche-sur-Yon is located in the middle of the Vendean scrap-metal, in the valley of the Yon, Affluent of the Lay. The city is built on a granitic rock which overhangs the valley of Yon and gives to the city a strategic position. The city is located at the center of the department. Napoleon Bonaparte chose besides the Roche-sur-Yon like prefecture for its position centered and strategic in the middle of a department which was to be pacified after the Guerre of the Vendée.

Common neighbors

Flowered city

The Roche-sur-Yon was rewarded for 3 flowers () to the Concours for the cities and flowered villages (prize list 2007).

History

The first existing traces of the Roche-sur-Yon date from the 10th century. The city was an old seigniory belonging to Beauvau, then with the Bourbon as from the 15th century. The Roche-sur-Yon became a principality-peerage while passing to the Bourbon-Montpensier, then with the Orleans. The city returned to the Crown of France under Louis XV.

The castle of the city, built at a strategic place of the valley of Yon, was besieged and begun again to the English by Olivier de Clisson at the time of the war of Hundred-Years. It was partly destroyed at the time of the Wars of religion which shook the Poitou, and finally burnt during the wars of the Vendée.

In 1793, the North of the the Vendée revolts against the République. The Roche-sur-Yon remains republican, but the March 14th 1793 the Vendean insurrectionists take the city. After the Wars of the Vendée and the passage of the republican columns (infernal columns), the city was not any more that one small mainly destroyed borough. May 25th, 1804 (5 meadow of year XII), Napoleon I {{er}}, then first consul, made the decision to transfer the prefecture from the the Vendée of Fontenay-the-Count to the Roche-sur-Yon where it made build a new city ready to accommodate 15.000 inhabitants. This new city was to become a fortified town and to make it possible to pacify the the Vendée. A checkerboard plan was thus adopted with in its center a great place of weapons (the current Napoleon place). The city then took the name of “Napoleon”. The population of the city was then primarily made up of soldiers in garrison and civils servant.

August 8th, 1808, vis-a-vis the slowness of the building work of “its” city there, Napoleon I {{er}} goes and dvant work will say: “I spread gold with full hands to build palates, you built a town of mud” (because Emmanuel Crétet, its Minister of Interior Department and director of the Bridges and Chaussées, had decided without its opinion to make it rebuild by Conterot first specialist in the Pisé).

Certain work will be finished after the fall of the First Empire, like the Église Saint-Louis, ordered in 1804 and finished in 1829.

The city developed gradually, until reaching the limits of the territory of the commune.

The city was called successively:

Napoleon (during the First Empire)
the Bourbon-Vendée (during the Restoration)
the Roche-sur-Yon (during the Second Republic)
the Napoleon-Vendée (during the Second Empire)
the Roche-sur-Yon (since 1870).

The city celebrates in 2004 the bicentenary of its foundation by Napoleon Bonaparte.

Blasonnement

Malta-brown reports, in illustrated France , volume V (1884), that “this city does not have officially recognized weapons; but an old seal of its files represents: ”

one ecu charged semi-part of a cross potencée, confined of four small crosses, which is of Jerusalem, and sown flowers of lily, with the lambel of three hanging, which is of Anjou.

The Large encyclopedic Larousse in 10 volumes, as for him, pays this blasonnement:

Of mouths at a town of money on a rock of sinople accompanied as a chief by a gold foix, with the canton of the towns of second order, which is with dextral, of azure to the capital letter gold NR surmounted by a radiant star of same.

The town of money on a rock represents the Roche-sur-Yon, built on a rock dominating Yon with 75 Mr. the letter NR out of gold represents Napoleon I {{er}} and the two hands tightened beside the NR represent the agreement made between the Emperor and the city.

Bicentenary

The city celebrated throughout the year the 2004 bicentenary of its creation by Napoleon 1st, the 5 meadow year XII, that is to say on May 25th, 1804. The singularity first of the new city issued by Napoleon resides in his geometrical layout in the form of pentagon, its grid in the shape of grid (or checkerwork) and its division in four districts organized around a great central place. The creation of this new city results from the transfer of the initially selected chief town: Fontenay the Count, old capital of Low-Poitou.

In addition to the many demonstrations organized on this occasion, several works were ordered to leave a significant trace of this event: a monumental tapestry carried out by Jacques Brachet, a sculpture of Jean-Pierre Viot, and a medal created by Therese Dufresne.

A Federation of the Napoleonean cities of Europe was made up, among which Ajaccio, Iéna, Pontivy, Putulsk, Waterloo… and of course the Roche-sur-Yon.

Demography

The new city that Napoleon Bonaparte had chosen to accommodate 15.000 inhabitants developed very slowly at the 19th century. This is probably due to the fact that the city was artificial and that it did not have any factor of attraction. The arrival of the railroad under the Second Empire, in 1866, allowed a faster growth. Indeed the city is with the crossing of the ways Paris - Sands of Olonne and Nantes - Bordeaux.

It is only at the beginning of the Third Republic (1870) that the city exceeded the 10.000 inhabitants. The population growth became strong at the end of the 20th century, especially after fusion with Saint-Andre-with Ornay and the Borough-under-the-Rock in 1964, two communes rural which brought space to the city for its development. In the years 1980, the population stagnated around 45.000 inhabitants, but since 1990, the population again strongly grows. Indeed, the Roche-sur-Yon recorded an increase of 9% of its population between 1990 and 1999, which makes this city the second of the Pays of the Loire in term of population growth, just after Nantes.

source: http://www.insee.fr/fr/ffc/docs_ffc/psdc.htm (2004) Estimate of INSEE at July 1st, 2004.

Pattern of the settlement according to the sex (estimate 2005 of INSEE):

Pattern of the settlement according to the age (estimate 2005 of INSEE):

Economy

This new city, located in full center of a very rural department, has only little industry. However some large factories are present in particular in the electric and electronic, but so pneumatic field. The agglomeration is served by small the Aéroport of the Roche-sur-Yon - the Gorses.

The major part of employment come from the tertiary sector, very developed, which makes Roche-sur-Yon, a town of services (health, councils, bank, trade…)

Distribution of the credits (in 1999, according to INSEE):

Primary: 0,9%;
Secondary (industry + building): 19,2%;
Tertiary (trade + services): 79,9%;
Unemployment: approximately 8% in 2001.

The Roche-sur-Yon is the seat of the Chamber of commerce and industry of the Vendée. It manages the port of the Sables of Olonne, Saint-Gilles-Cross-of-Life, fishing of the Island of Yeu, the Herbaudière, pleasure of the island of Yeu, the Brochets, the Epoids, the Champs and the Market the Large one of Fruit and vegetables of Sands-D' Olonne.

Administration

The mayor of the Roche-sur-Yon east Pierre Regnault since the month of April 2004, following the noted resignation of office by the prefect of his predecessor Jacques Auxiette (PS), this last having been elected president of the area Country of the Loire. Jacques Auxiette was mayor since 1977.

See also: list of the successive mayors.

The Roche-sur-Yon east chief town of two cantons:

the canton of Rock-on-Yon-North is made of a part of the Roche-sur-Yon and communes of Mouilleron-the-Captive and Venansault (29 789 inhabitants);
the canton of the Rock-on-Yon-South is made of a part of the Roche-sur-Yon and communes of Aubigny, Road metal-under-the-Ormeaux, the Chaize-the-Viscount, Clouzeaux, Fougeré, Nesmy, Saint-Florent-of-Wood, the Apron and Thorigny (40 920 inhabitants).

Higher education

The Roche-sur-Yon is the seat of several establishments of private college education:

the Catholic Institute of Higher learning (ICES) HTTP: /www.ices.fr which is articulated around seven dies of traditional university education: Biology, Right, History, Languages, Letters Modern and Traditional, Mathémathiques-Physics, Political sciences. These formations make it possible to obtain the university degrees of State within the framework of the Réforme LMD.

the Institute of higher learning of Technology (STI)

the School of Management and Trade (EGC)

but also of a delocalized antenna of the University of Nantes in particular delivering licenses as well as a IUT.

Tourist monuments and places

Napoleon Place with the equestrian statue of the emperor in his center (work of the count de Nieuwerkerke)
Church Saint-Louis (1829)
House Rebirth (1566, older building of the current city)
National stud farm (19th century)
the abbey of Fontenelles to the accesses of the city (13th century)

Transport

Road transport and highway

The Vendean highway network is organized out of star around the Roche-sur-Yon. The city is thus with the crossing of several secondary roads such as:

the RD 160 (ex- RN160): Sand-with Olonne <-> the Roche-sur-Yon <-> Cholet, Angers
the RD 746: Luçon <-> the Roche-sur-Yon
the RD 747: the Section-on-Sea <-> the Roche-sur-Yon
the RD 937: Nantes <-> the Roche-sur-Yon
the RD 948: Noirmoutier, Challans <-> the Roche-sur-Yon <-> Holy-Hermine, Fontenay-the-Count

The Roche-sur-Yon is also served by a highway:

the A87 (Angers <-> the Roche-sur-Yon): the Roche-sur-Yon Is

This highway should be prolonged by ASF of 16 km in order to be used as Southern skirting at the city in 2008. Two exchangers will then be added: the Roche-sur-Yon South and the Roche-sur-Yon West .

Rail-bound transports

Air transports

See also: Airport of the Roche-sur-Yon - the Gorses

The Roche-sur-Yon has a small civil airport, the airport of the Gorses or Rene Couzinet, located at approximately 6 kilometers in the North-East of the city. One reaches it by the secondary road 160 (ex- RN160). This airport comprises two tracks of which one out of bitumen.

Public transport

The Roche-sur-Yon is served by an urban grid system created in 1976. The company managing this network is the Company of La Roche-sur-Yon-native Transport (STY). The network, which comprised 3 lines in 1976, currently consists of 9 regular lines, serving the town suit. The Napoleon place, served by 7 of the 9 lines, constitutes the heart of this network.

In 2000, the STY recorded 3.672.000 voyages for 1.440.000 kilometers traversed, which represents 70,6 voyages per annum and per capita (average of the towns of less than 100.000 inhabitants: 43).

Personalities

Paul Baudry (1828 - 1886), born with the Roche-sur-Yon, painted artist.
Emile Faguet, born with the Roche-sur-Yon in 1847, literary writer and critical.
Andre-Charles Nauleau (1908 - 1986), born with the Roche-sur-Yon, painter.
Stephan Piobetta, (1913 - 1944), born with the Roche-sur-Yon, aggregate of philosophy, Companion of the Release.
Benjamin Rabier, born in 1864 with the Roche-sur-Yon, painter and draftsman, famous for the drawing of the Cow Which Laughs .
Jean Thibaudeau, born with the Roche-sur-Yon in 1935, writer.

Photographs

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