Bethune

Bethune is located 33 km west of Lille and 186 km north of Paris , at the intersection of the River Love and the shipping channel Dunkirk-Scheldt, 3 km from the A26 England Highway Trois-Calais.

Until 1248, the city was owned by the counts of Bethune , among whom occurred, incidentally, the troubadour and crusader Conon de Bethune . The famous Duke of Sully belonged to another branch of the Bethune family. After the loss of independence, the city shared the fate of the county of Artois until the Nimwegen Peace (1678), according to which the Habsburgs ceded it to the Bourbons .

The historical center of the city is the Main Square (Grand-Place). In the center of it, on the site of the modern city hall building, in the Middle Ages stood the city hall. During World War I, the square, with the exception of Beffroy , was destroyed and rebuilt in 1920-1927 by a group of architects led by Louis-Marie Cordonnier. The architectural style of the square is a mixture of neo-regionalism and art deco .

The city hall partially destroyed during World War I was rebuilt in 1926. The building, which currently houses the city hall, has preserved the proportions and scale of the former town hall and is in harmony with the architecture of the buildings surrounding it.

Bethune’s main symbol - the 47-meter-high beffroy bell tower crowned with a dragon figure - is located in the very center of the Main Square. Beffroy, built in 1388, has 36 bells and is included in the UNESCO World Heritage Site as part of the Beffroy group of Belgium and France. The Neo-Byzantine building of the Church of St. Vedas, built in 1924-1927 on the site of the ancient church of the times of Emperor Charles V, destroyed in 1918, also stands out next to the square.

Another attraction of Bethune is the ancient artillery tower of St. Ignatius, built in the XIV-XV centuries. She was part of the old city fortifications. During the hostilities of the 17th century, the fortifications were destroyed, only the tower itself and the bastion of Saint-Prix survived.

In the city, awarded the Order of the Legion of Honor for valor, there is a large cemetery for the fallen during the First World War .

In the 19th century, Bethune began to develop rapidly as a center for coal mining. The city was home to the Bagnune Coal Company (Compagnie des mines de Béthune), which controlled mining operations in the surrounding area.

Employment structure:

• agriculture - 0.2%
• industry - 16.4%
• construction - 2.9%
• trade, transport and services - 38.8%
• state and municipal services - 41.8%

The unemployment rate ( 2013 ) is 20.5% (France as a whole - 12.8%, the Pas de Calais department - 17.2%).
The average annual income per person, euro ( 2013 ) - 16 553 (France as a whole - 25 140, the department of the Pas de Calais - 17 706).

Population dynamics, people

Since 2014, the mayor of Bethune has been a member of the Union of Democrats and Independents, Olivier Gacquerre. In the 2014 elections, he managed to take advantage of the disagreements between the left forces and led the single right bloc to victory in the 2nd round, thereby interrupting the 37-year period of stay in power in the city of the left.

• Jean Buridan (c. 1300-c. 1358), philosopher, representative of medieval nominalism
• Antoine Bunois (c. 1430-1492), composer, representative of the first Dutch school

•   Hastings , UK
•   Kortrijk , Belgium
•   Schwerte , Germany

• Communes of the Department of Pas de Calais

• Bethune, city // Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary : in 86 volumes (82 volumes and 4 additional). - SPb. , 1890-1907.

• National Institute of Statistics
• 2014 municipal election results
•   Wikimedia Commons has media related to Bethune

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  City Hall

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  The bell tower of the church of St. Vedast

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  Beffroy

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  Art Deco Stained Glass Window in City Hall

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  Lamartine Square

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  Main square