Ardennes (department)

The department of Ardennes is bounded by Aisne to the west, Marne to the south, Meuse to the east and Belgium (Provinces of Namur, Luxembourg and Hainaut) to the north.

The district is crossed in its northern part by the winding Meuse valley where most people live and activities are focused. Charleville-Mézières and Sedan are the main urban centres.

It is in the catchment of the Academy of Reims and the jurisdiction of the Court of Appeal of Reims.

The statistical code and Post Code prefix is 08.

Ardennes is part of the Ardennes, a plateau deeply cut by the Meuse and its many tributaries which reach into Wallonia in Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany (Eifel), and the north of the neighbouring department of Meuse.

Covering 5,229 square kilometres (2,019 square miles), the department was the smallest among the four contributors to Champagne-Ardenne. It is diverse in climate, topography, natural vegetation and land use, which is a mixture of forest and arable farming.

The highest point is 504 m, on the southern slopes of the Croix Scaille shared by French commune Les Hautes-Rivières and the Belgian commune of Gedinne.

It is in this part of the Ardennes mountains or high hills that the Meuse winds through, known locally as "the valley". Flowing into the northern part of the department, it waters the main cities of Sedan, Charleville-Mézières, and Nouzonville. It has numerous tributaries – the main ones locally being the Semois and the Chiers.

As to the south, the Aisne flows through the vast near-treeless plain of Champagne chalk (historically by the landed class and bourgeoisie disparaged as flea-ridden Champagne) extended to the south-west by the small, grain-growing Porcien, Thiérache in the west and Argonne in the east are fringe grasslands with very distinctive upper soils.

• 
  A typical landscape of Champagne chalk in the south of the department.
• 
  View of the Meuse valley in the north of the department at Givet.
• 
  Farm of Porcien in the south-west of the department.

Rocroi in the snow – shallow to deep snow in winter is likely in this department.

The department does not have a uniform climate throughout its territory, especially most winters.

From the north near Aisne and the border with Belgium, through the centre near the canton of Omont, to the south of the valley of the Meuse, the climate is considered "degraded continental" (heavy rainfall in autumn and frequent frosts in winter). The rest of the department has a "degraded oceanic" or "temperate continental" climate (relative to an oceanic climate, the winters are colder and the summers are hotter, rainfall in the lowlands is lower and winds are of lower strength). All this stems from location, midway between the English Channel, the North Sea and parts of the continent relatively far from any sea.

Winter can be as cold as inner continental lowland Europe some winters and quite often snowier, particularly near main settlements Rocroi, Givet and Sedan in the north.

This climatic difference is particularly pronounced in the presence of frost especially in the valleys of the Meuse, Semoy, the plateau of Rocroi, and around the Croix-Scaille where it can be very marked and persists longer in the year with great influence on vegetation.

Across lands further west and south frontal zones (affecting air and precipitation) are tempered more by the English Channel, Bay of Biscay and North Sea; nearby seeing quite flat terrain – isolated small ranges or lower regions of hills, excluding the mountains across much of the south-eastern third of France.

Despite a high birth rate (the highest rate in France in 1968), the department continues to lose population: 275,371 in 2016 due to high unemployment (hence "migration" continues). The two world wars have each time resulted in a loss of population (such as the "exodus" of 1940). There were 330,000 people at the end of the 19th century.

That the major urban areas of the department are the most affected is characterized by a stagnation of the population – a population decline of up to 2% compared to 1999 in the city centres and suburbs (Charleville-Mézières, Revin, Fumay, Givet, Rethel).

The communes, however, are gaining inhabitants (the phenomenon of urban sprawl). This is explained by the search for better living in the countryside which matches the desire of many people to build a small land-holding, typically a house with land to the detriment of their proximity to their workplace. This highly contemporary concept favours commuting between Home and Work. This is the phenomenon of suburbanization which has become common in the whole of France from which Ardennes does not escape.

On 1 January 2006, the Ardennes population stood at 295,653 inhabitants. The population is declining in urban areas but five times less than in rural areas. The limited decline in the urban space where two-thirds of the Ardennes people live is the result of two opposite dynamics. Semi-urban communes have gained 0.5% of inhabitants per year over the period 1999–2006 at the expense of urban centres (downtown and suburbs) which lost 0.6% per year. For thirty years the population has lagged in the main cities of Ardennes. Between 1999 and 2006, the annual decline was 0.2% for Sedan and Rethel, 1.8% for Revin, and 1% for Charleville-Mézières. The most unfavourable rural population change came from degradation of rural employment centres, such as Fumay or Vouziers and to a lesser extent that of their periphery. This was slightly mitigated by a small increase in population in other rural communes.

The most populous commune is the prefecture Charleville-Mézières. As of 2019, there are seven communes with more than 5,000 inhabitants:[4]

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  Charleville-Mézières on the Meuse, the main town of Ardennes and the third largest agglomeration in Champagne-Ardenne.
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  Sedan, also watered by the Meuse, is at the heart of the second largest urban area of Ardennes.
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  Rethel, a city watered by the Aisne, is the third largest city of Ardennes and also the third largest urban area.

The name of the department is related to the toponym Ardenne which could derive from the Gallic ardu meaning "high". It would have been transformed into Arduenna by the Romans to designate the ancient Ardennes forest and the mountains mentioned by Julius Caesar in the work attributed to him: Commentaries on the Gallic War. Arduenna Sylva was used for the pine forest on the plateau of Bastogne. It was then transformed into Ardenna in the 6th century.[8]

This toponym is absent from the names of communes in the department of Ardennes while those of Argonne (Beaumont-en-Argonne), Porcien (Château-Porcien, Novion-Porcien, Chaumont-Porcien, and even Champagne (Vaux-Champagne) are sometimes fused and all have a connotation of regional belonging. This is why the name of Ardenne is not specific to the department as it is found in many other parts of France – for example in western and central-western France,[N 1] Belgium, and Luxembourg where it has its usual sense – from Celtic origin – of "high", "high woods" or "forest".[9]

Place Ducale in Charleville-Mézières, prefecture of the Ardennes department.

The seat of the prefecture of the department is at Charleville-Mézières and the three sub-prefectures are Rethel, Sedan, and Vouziers. Rocroi was also a sub-prefecture until 1926.[5] In addition, the departmental seat of the General Council of Ardennes is located at Charleville-Mézières.

Map of the communes of the Ardennes department.

The Ardennes is composed of 452 communes which are grouped into 19 cantons and four arrondissements of varying sizes.

The largest arrondissement of the department is that of Charleville-Mézières while the smallest is Sedan which is half the size. The two arrondissements that occupy the northern part of the Ardennes, however, have four-fifths of the departmental population.

The other two arrondissements, Rethel and Vouziers, occupy the southern part of the department with roughly comparable areas but are very sparsely populated.

Before the Poincaré decree of 10 September 1926 which removed many sub-prefectures in France, the department had five arrondissements. In addition to the four mentioned above, the fifth was that of Rocroi – a small historic city in the north-west of the department close to Belgium – which has been since annexed in its entirety to the district of Charleville-Mézières. The former arrondissement of Rocroi then consisted of six cantons – including four on the border with Belgium – which were Givet, Fumay, Revin, Rocroi, Rumigny, and Signy-le-Petit.[10]

The Hotel de Ville in Givet, a border town with Belgium.

Under the intercommunality framework, Ardennes consists of an urban community organized around the city préfecture, called Heart of Ardennes and has fifteen communities of communes including in Sedan the Communauté de communes du Pays sedanais which is the most important.

In addition, the Ardennes has 33 communes that do not adhere to any Intercommunal cooperative organisation (EPCI).

• 
  The small town of Rocroi was a sub-prefecture of Ardennes until 1926.
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  La Meuse at Sedan, sub-préfecture and second city of Ardennes.
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  Rethel, sub-préfecture of Ardennes and third city of the department.
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  Vouziers, the smallest sub-préfecture of the Ardennes department.

• List of the 452 communes of the department
• List of cantons of Ardennes
• Arrondissement of Charleville-Mézières
• Arrondissement of Rethel
• Arrondissement of Sedan
• Arrondissement of Vouziers

Home purchases by Belgians and Dutch people are common in the region because the prices are much lower than in their countries of residence. However, as of 2019, 3.5% of available housing in the department are second homes which is rather low.[15]

Medieval Festival in 2011

Medieval Festival in 2011

For more than 40 years (the first time in 1961 at the initiative of Jacques Félix) there has been in Charleville-Mézières the World Festival of Puppet Theatre (now every three years). At the last festival in 2009 more than 200,000 people were present. In the same city there is also a school: the International Institute of Puppetry. The Rock Festival and Territory Le Cabaret Vert had more than 50,000 festival-goers at the seventh festival in 2011 and this takes place every year in Charleville-Mézières making it the 7th largest festival in France by attendance. The festival The Poetic Otherworld organizes events in October in some Ardennes communes.

At Sedan the medieval festival is held every year around the Castle of Sedan, the largest castle in Europe. This is an event that brings together more than 30,000 spectators.

At Rethel there are the famous festivals of Saint Anne which have been held for over 200 years.

At Bogny-sur-Meuse there is the Aymon Folk Festival which brings together nearly 10,000 people.

The Ardennes also has other well-known festivals such as the Festimeuse which attracts 10,000 people, the festival of Cassine with 7,000 people at the 3rd festival in 2010.

The metal festival of Vouziers attracts about 2000 people. The Rock festival in El Mont at Aiglemont hosted more than 2,000 people in 2010. Lastly there is at Douzy every July and every second year the Douzy'k Festival which brings between 5,000 and 7,000 people each time.

The Argonne does not have only two musical events. For 14 years, the village of Louvergny has staged a lyrical festival called Encounters of Louvergny in early August as the heart of the Argonne campaign, with singers from different countries. More recently Notes of Argonne propose to cross the Argonne mountains with concerts of classical music with regional and national performers. The May 2008 festival included Patrice Fontanarosa and his wife Marielle Nordmann. Both events had an immediate success in the region and the public has not stopped coming since.

For a long time the region was a land of legends with its rocks, rivers, lakes, and thick dark forests: for example The Four Sons of Aymon, knights on their horse called Bayard helped by the enchanter Maugis who gave his name to village of Noyers-Pont-Maugis at the time of Charlemagne.[16]

The play by William Shakespeare, "As you Like It" (1599), is set in the Forest of Arden, an imagined hybrid of the Ardennes and the Arden woods near his birthplace of Stratford-upon-Avon, England.[17]

The novel by Yves Gibeau, Les gros sous (The big money) (1953) takes place in the south-west of the department.

The Ardennes serves as the backdrop to the novel by Julien Gracq, A Balcony in the Forest (Un balcon en forêt), published in 1958 and for which Michel Mitrani made a film in 1979 with Jacques Villeret. This novel/story is based on the experience as a soldier by the author at the beginning of the Second World War.

The region serves as a backdrop for the Ardennes writer André Dhôtel (1900–1991), especially in Le Pays où l'on n’arrive jamais (The country where one never arrives).

The department has a varied natural environment (the Meuse valley, the border between Belgium and France, the Ardennes plateau, forests, etc.) which attracts filmmakers and television which first began in the late 1960s and in the 1970s.

• Le Train (The Train) (1973) with Jean-Louis Trintignant and Romy Schneider was partly filmed in the valley of the Meuse
• Maigret chez les Flamands (Maigret and the Flemes) (1976), a novel by Georges Simenon who knew the area nearby (Liège). Since then he travelled a lot and located the action at Givet (the TV movie with Jean Richard was shot here).
• The film by Claude Autant-Lara, Les Patates (The Potatoes), produced in 1969 with Pierre Perret, was shot entirely in Bourg-Fidèle, a village on the plateau of Rocroi.
• In 2006, Les Enfants du Pays (The children of the country) by Pierre Javaux with Michel Serrault was located in a small village lost in the Ardennes Forest in May 1940 when five Senegalese Tirailleurs are isolated from their regiment and lost, meet an old man and his two small children left alone after the exodus of the population.
• In 2007, Marcel Trillat made Silence dans la vallée (Silence in the valley), a documentary about the liquidation of the ironworks at Nouzonville, the Ateliers Thomé-Génot (workshops Thomé-Génot) by American buyers who empty the cash for themselves. Cellatex suffered the same fate at Givet in 2000.

Regional newspapers are: L'Ardennais (from Charleville-Mézières) and L'Union. They now have shared writing – only the first page differs. Since 2009, a weekly newspaper has been published in the Ardennes: La Semaine des Ardennes. Printed in Charleville-Mézières, over 2000 copies are printed.