Besançon

Besançon (, , , ; archaic german: Bisanz; la, Vesontio) is the prefecture of the department of Doubs. The city is located in Eastern France, close to the Jura Mountains and the border with Switzerland.

Capital of the historic and cultural region of Franche-Comté, Besançon is home to the Bourgogne-Franche-Comté regional council headquarters, and is an important administrative centre in the region. It is also the seat of one of the fifteen French ecclesiastical provinces and one of the two divisions of the French Army.

In 2019 the city had a population of 117,912, in a metropolitan area of 280,701, the second in the region in terms of population.

Established in a meander of the river Doubs, the city was already important during the Gallo-Roman era under the name of ''Vesontio'', capital of the Sequani. Its geography and specific history turned it into a military stronghold, a garrison city, a political centre, and a religious capital.

Besançon is the historical capital of watchmaking in France. This has led it to become a centre for innovative companies in the fields of microtechnology, micromechanics, and biomedical engineering. The University of Franche-Comté, founded in 1423, enrolls nearly 30,000 students each year, including around 4,000 trainees from all over the world within its Centre for Applied Linguistics (CLA).

The greenest city in France, it enjoys a quality of life recognized in Europe. Thanks to its rich historical and cultural heritage and its unique architecture, Besançon has been labeled a " Town of Art and History" since 1986. Its fortifications, designed by Vauban, have been listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2008.

History

Toponymy

The city is first recorded in 58 BC as ''Vesontio'' in Book I of Julius Caesar's ''Commentarii de Bello Gallico''. The etymology of ''Vesontio'' is uncertain. The most common explanation is that the name is of Celtic origin, derived from ''wes'', meaning 'mountain'. During the 4th century, the letter B took the place of the V, and the city name changed to ''Besontio'' or ''Bisontion'' and then underwent several transformations to become ''Besançon'' in 1243.

Ancient history

The city sits within an oxbow of the river Doubs (a tributary of the Saône); a mountain closes the fourth side. During the Bronze Age, c.1500 BC, tribes of Gauls settled the oxbow.

From the 1st century BC through the modern era, the town had a significant military importance because the Alps rise abruptly to its immediate south, presenting a significant natural barrier.

According to Strabo, the cause of the conflict was commercial. Each tribe claimed the Arar and the tolls on trade along it. The Sequani controlled access to the Rhine River and had built an oppidum (a fortified town) at Vesontio to protect their interests. The Sequani defeated and massacred the Haedui at the Battle of Magetobriga, with the help of the Arverni tribe and the Germanic Suebi tribe under the Germanic king Ariovistus.

Julius Caesar, in his commentaries detailing his conquest of Gaul, describes ''Vesontio'' (possibly Latinized), as the largest town of the Sequani, a smaller Gaulic tribe, and mentions that a wooden palisade surrounded it. It appears as ''Vesontine'' in the Tabula Peutingeriana.

Over the centuries, the name permutated to become ''Besantio'', ''Besontion'', ''Bisanz'' in Middle High German, and gradually arrived at the modern French ''Besançon''. The locals retain their ancient heritage referring to themselves as ''Bisontins'' (feminine: ''Bisontine'').

It has been an archbishopric since the 4th century.

Middle Ages

In 843, the Treaty of Verdun divided up Charlemagne's empire. Besançon became part of Lotharingia, under the Duke of Burgundy.

As part of the Holy Roman Empire since 1034, the city became an archbishopric, and was designated the Free Imperial City of Besançon (an autonomous city-state under the Holy Roman Emperor) in 1184. In 1157, Emperor Frederick Barbarossa held the Diet of Besançon. There, Cardinal Orlando Bandinelli (the future Pope Alexander III, then adviser of Pope Adrian IV) openly asserted before the Emperor that the imperial dignity was a papal beneficium (in the more general sense of favour, not the strict feudal sense of fief), which incurred the wrath of the German princes. He would have fallen on the spot under the battle-axe of his lifelong foe, Otto of Wittelsbach, had Frederick not intervened. The Archbishops were elevated to Princes of the Holy Roman Empire in 1288. The close connection to the Empire is reflected in the city's coat of arms.

In 1290, after a century of fighting against the power of the archbishops, the Emperor granted Besançon its independence.

Renaissance

In the 15th century, Besançon came under the influence of the dukes of Burgundy. After the marriage of Mary of Burgundy to Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor, the city was in effect a Habsburg fief. In 1519 Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, King of Spain, became the Holy Roman Emperor. This made him master of the Franche-Comté and Besançon, a francophone imperial city. In 1526 the city obtained the right to mint coins, which it continued to strike until 1673. Nevertheless, all coins bore the name of Charles V.

When Charles V abdicated in 1555, he gave the Franche-Comté to his son, Philip II, King of Spain. Besançon remained a free imperial city under the protection of the King of Spain. In 1598, Philip II gave the province to his daughter on her marriage to an Austrian archduke. It remained formally a portion of the Empire until its cession at the peace of Westphalia in 1648. Spain regained control of Franche-Comté and the city lost its status as a free city. Then in 1667, Louis XIV claimed the province as a consequence of his marriage to Marie-Thérèse of Spain in the War of Devolution.

Louis conquered the city for the first time in 1668, but the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle returned it to Spain within a matter of months. While it was in French hands, the famed military engineer Vauban visited the city and drew up plans for its fortification. The Spaniards built the main centre point of the city's defences, "la Citadelle", siting it on Mont Saint-Étienne, which closes the neck of the oxbow that is the site of the original town. In their construction, the Spaniards followed Vauban's designs.

In 1674, French troops recaptured the city, which the Treaty of Nijmegen (1678) then awarded to France. At this time the city became the administrative centre for the Franche-Comté, with its own Parlement of Besançon, which replaced Dole.

As a result of control passing to France, Vauban returned to working on the citadel's fortifications, and those of the city. This process lasted until 1711, some 30 years, and the walls built then surround the city. Between the train station and the central city there is a complex moat system that now serves road traffic. Numerous forts, some of which date back to that time and that incorporate Vauban's designs elements sit on the six hills that surround the city: Fort de Trois Châtels, Fort Chaudanne, Fort du Petit Chaudanne, Fort Griffon, Fort des Justices, Fort de Beauregard and Fort de Brégille. The citadel itself has two dry moats, with an outer and inner court. In the evenings, the illuminated Citadelle stands above the city as a landmark and a testament to Vauban's genius as a military engineer.

Modern Europe

In 1814, the Austrians invaded and bombarded the city. It also occupied an important position during the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–71. In 1871, a project of Besançon Commune is engaged.

The Nazis occupied the citadel during World War II. Between 1940 and 1944, the Germans executed some one hundred French resistance fighters there. However, Besançon saw little action during the war. The allies bombed the railway complex in 1943, and the next year the Germans resisted the U.S. advance for four days.

Besançon was also the location, between 1940 and 1941, of an Internment Camp (''Konzentrationslager''), Frontstalag 142, also known as ''Caserne Vauban'', which the Germans set up for 3–4,000 holders of British passports, all women and children. The conditions were harsh; many hundreds of internees died of pneumonia, diarrhea, food poisoning, dysentery, and frostbite.

In 1959, the French Army turned the citadel over to the city of Besançon, which turned it into a museum.

The forts of Brégille and Beauregard sit across the Doubs from the city. In 1913, a private company built a funicular to the Brégille Heights. The funicular passed from private ownership to the SNCF, who finally closed it in 1987. The funicular's tracks, stations and even road signs remain in place to this day.

Geography

Location

Besançon is located in the north-east quarter of France on the river Doubs. It is about east of the national capital of Paris, east of Dijon in Burgundy, northwest of Lausanne in Switzerland, and southwest of Belfort in Bourgogne-Franche-Comté. It is located at the edge of the Jura Mountains.

Topography

The city initially developed in a natural meander (or oxbow loop) of the river Doubs with a diameter of almost . The flat inner loop has an elevation of about , and is bounded to the south by a hill called ''Mont Saint-Étienne'', which has a maximum height of . The city is surrounded by six other hills which range in elevation from : Brégille, Griffon, Planoise, Chaudanne, Montfaucon, and Montboucon. (There is a barge canal that cuts through rock under Mont Saint-Étienne, short-cutting the meander.)

Climate

Besançon is under the influence of both an oceanic climate (notable precipitations in quantity as much as in frequency) and a continental climate with hard winters (snow, frost) and warm and dry summers. The year-round average is . The warmest month is July and the coldest is January . Besançon receives about of precipitation per year. The wettest month is May (); the driest is August (). The highest temperature ever, recorded on 28 July 1921, was , and the lowest was a reached on 1 January 1985.

Neighborhoods

* La Boucle
* Battant
* Bregille
* Les Clairs-Soleils
* Velotte
* La Butte
* Les Chaprais
* Palente
* Les Tilleroyes
* Montrapon
* Planoise
* Saint-Claude
* Saint-Ferjeux
* Chailluz

Population

As of 2019, the population of the City of Besançon was 117,912, lower than the historical peak of 120,315 in 1975. Grand Besançon Métropole covers , 68 municipalities and has a population of 195,745. The metropolitan area covers , 312 municipalities and has 280,701 inhabitants. It is the 39th metropolitan area of France, and its population increased by 4.5% between 2008 and 2019.

Government and politics

Until 2016, Besançon was the capital of the Franche-Comté administrative ''région'' of France, a ''région'' including the four ''départements'' of Doubs, Haute-Saône