Villeneuve d'Ascq

Région	Nord-Pas-de-Calais
Département	Nord
Arrondissement	Lille
Cantons	chief town of 2 cantons (1 commune, 65,042 habitants)
Habitants	Villeneuvois
Population (1999)	65,706 habitants
Population with double accounts (1999)	65.042 habitants
Metropolitan area	Lille
Intercommunalité (2004)	Communauté Urbaine de Lille
Size	22.66 km²

Located between Lille and Roubaix, at the crossroads of the principal freeways towards Paris, Ghent, Antwerp and Brussels, Villeneuve in Ascq (Villeneuve d'Ascq in French) is one of the principal cities of the communauté urbaine Lille Métropole

Contents

1 Demography 2 Geography 3 History 4 Chronology: 5 Administration 6 Landmarks 7 Miscellaneous 8 Transportation 9 External Links

Demography

Villeneuve d'Ascq counts more than 65,000 inhabitants and attracts 50,000 students. The median age of the population is 29 years.

Geography

The city counts approximately 10 km² of greenspace, lakes, forests and arable lands.

History

The roots of the city go up in Celtic Gaul, and are anchored in two feudal mounds, a Gallo-Roman site and a Carolingian one.

Its site was selected in the 1960s to accommodate the new town of Lille-Est, which was to channel the development of the agglomeration. The commune of Villeneuve d'Ascq was created in 1970 by the amalgamation of the three communes (Ascq , Annapes and Flers ). Its name evokes at the same time the new city and the memory of Ascq, martyr city of April 1, 1944, date on which the Nazis massacred 86 men.

Chronology:

• April 11, 1969 : creation of the publicly-owned establishment of installation of Lille-Est (EPALE)
• February 25, 1970: decree of creation of the commune of Villeneuve d'Ascq (26,178 inhabitants according to the census of 1968)
• December 31, 1983: dissolution of the EPALE, the city then reached 60,000 inhabitants.
• 1986: creation of Villeneuve d'Ascq Technopole (VAT, pronounced veh-ah-teh).

Administration

Having succeeded Gérard Caudron as mayor from 1977 to 2001, Jean-Michel Stievenard and his team wish to maintain balances the environnement and the economic development, the greenery and technology, the daily wellbeing and the great projects, the social one and quality, opening on the its internal comfort and rest of the world, its finance and high degree of public utility.

Villeneuve d'Ascq is divided into two cantons:

• Villeneuve d'Ascq-Nord (North) counts 31,811 inhabitants;
• Villeneuve d'Ascq-Sud (South) counts 33,231 inhabitants.

Landmarks

The city keeps of its past of many vestiges, sites and equipment. One can visit a museum of modern art there, the forum of sciences François Mitterrand, the rebuildings of a Gaulois village to the park Archéologique ASNAPIO .

Miscellaneous

Villeneuve d'Ascq counts many laboratories, a great number of companies and two universities:

• the Université des Sciences et Techniques de Lille (USTL)
• the Université Charles de Gaulle de Lille

Other schools and institutes include:

• École Centrale de Lille
• EUDIL

Transportation

Villeneuve d'Ascq is connected to Lille by a VAL, a type of automatic (driverless) light rubber-tired metro. In fact, while the acronym VAL now officially stands for Véhicule Automatique Léger (automatic light vehicle), it was originally for Villeneuve d'Ascq à Lille (Villeneuve d'Ascq to Lille), the route of the first line to be projected, and inaugurated on April 25, 1983.

External Links

• Official site: http://www.mairie-villeneuvedascq.fr/
• Museum of modern art: http://www.nordnet.fr/mam/
• Forum des sciences (Centre François Miterrand): http://www.forum-des-sciences.tm.fr/
• Office of tourism: http://asso.nordnet.fr/ot-villeneuvedascq/s