Saulnes

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Saulnes
Saulnes coat of arms
Saulnes (France)
Saulnes
region Grand Est
Department Meurthe-et-Moselle
Arrondissement Briey
Canton Villerupt
Community association Longwy
Coordinates 49 ° 32 '  N , 5 ° 50'  E Coordinates: 49 ° 32 '  N , 5 ° 50'  E
height 275-398 m
surface 4 km 2
Residents 2,413 (January 1, 2017)
Population density 603 inhabitants / km 2
Post Code 54150
INSEE code 54493

Template: Infobox municipality in France / maintenance / different coat of arms in Wikidata

Saulnes ( German sun , Luxembourgish Zounen ) is a French commune with 2,413 inhabitants (as of January 1, 2017) in the Meurthe-et-Moselle department in the Grand Est region (until 2015 Lorraine ). It belongs to the Arrondissement of Briey and the Longwy community association .

geography

The municipality of Saulnes is located northeast of Longwy on the border with Luxembourg . The municipality extends along a side valley of the Moulaine , a small tributary of the Chiers , which belongs to the catchment area of ​​the Meuse . The valley is traversed by the Ruisseau de la Côte Rouge ( Réierbaach in Luxembourg ), which marks the border with Luxembourg for five kilometers in the east. The terrain rises steeply to the south-east and reaches its highest point in the municipality at 398 m above sea level in the forest ( Bois du Four ). In the north-west of the municipality there is a 100 m high wooded area ( Bois de Longlaville ). The remains of industrial wasteland can still be found east and south of the village. In the meantime, new medium-sized companies have settled on parts of the former industrial sites.

Neighboring municipalities of Saulnes are Pétange (Luxembourg) in the north, Differdange (Luxembourg) in the east, Hussigny-Godbrange in the southeast, Haucourt-Moulaine in the south and Longlaville in the west.

history

In a document from 1473, the place appeared as a tzones , in 1495 as a pinnacle . In 1531 the place was finally called Tzoenen . Due to the border location, the German spelling sun or the Lëtzebuergesche Zounen was also in use. In 1793 the village was called Sonne ( Haut-Sonne and Bas-Sonne ), from 1801 onwards, in addition to the spelling Sosne, the Saulnes, which is still valid today, appeared.

Saulnes, which was previously divided into an upper and a lower village, has long been part of the Duchy of Bar . The area around Saulnes recovered only very slowly from the devastating destruction of the Thirty Years War .

For a long time, iron ore mining and smelting were characteristic of Saulnes. The iron-bearing minette rock was mined . The Minette deposit was one of the most important iron ore deposits on earth. The reserves were estimated at 6 billion tons of ore with an iron content of 1950 million tons. The high phosphorus content of the minette prevented industrial mining for a long time, which then began after the introduction of the Thomas process . After the Franco-Prussian War of 1870/71, parts of Lorraine fell to the German Empire. The limit was set in such a way that large parts of the well-known Minette occurrence were in what was now the German Alsace-Lorraine . The geologist Wilhelm Hauchecorne , who was a member of the border regulation commission, had campaigned for this.

In 1474 there was a first forge with a small blast furnace in Saulnes, which was abandoned in the middle of the 16th century. Large-scale industrial iron processing and steel production began in the 19th century: in 1874 the Société des Hauts-Fourneaux de Saulnes-Raty et Cie opened the first modern blast furnace, two more followed until 1882. After an interruption due to the First World War, the company took off Société Lorraine Industrielle , which already operated two blast furnaces in nearby Hussigny , restarted operations in Saulnes in 1923. After the reconstruction of the facilities, some of which were destroyed in the Second World War, production at the blast furnaces was resumed in 1955. In 1968 the era of steel production in Saulnes came to an end. Due to the sales crisis due to cheap competition from overseas, this also affected all other steel and mining locations in northern Lorraine in the following years.

The decline of the iron and steel industry in the Longwy area was accompanied by sustained protests. Since the 1970s, new industries have slowly been established.

In 1878 Saulnes got a railway connection. The railway line from Longwy via Saulnes to Villerupt was not only used for passenger transport, but also connected several iron ore mine railways. The railway line was shut down in 1994.

Cité Rougeleck

With the commissioning of the blast furnaces and the enormous influx of workers, the housing shortage in Saulnes became acute. By 1872 the first workers' settlement with 96 apartments, the Cité Rougeleck, was built. It was based on the row house settlements of the English industrial locations. Two additional housing developments were built in 1895 and 1907 and the Cité Rougeleck was expanded. In 1927 three canteens were added. In 1930 the settlement area was expanded again so that a further 2,500 mine and steel workers could be accommodated.

Population development

year 1962 1968 1975 1982 1990 1999 2006 2017
Residents 3111 3418 2953 2783 2473 2454 2558 2413
Sources: Cassini and INSEE

Attractions

Church of St. Sebastian in Saulnes
  • Church of St. Sebastian ( Église Saint-Sébastien )
  • large castle of industrialist Gustave Raty (1832–1901), founder and owner of the Saulnes ironworks, built in the 1880s.
  • small castle, built for Marc Raty , the son of Gustave Raty between 1900 and 1905 in the immediate vicinity of the large castle
  • Museum of photography with early amateur film equipment, old cameras and laboratory equipment
  • Relics of industrial culture (mine railway systems, remains of old blast furnaces)

Economy and Infrastructure

Nine industrial and service companies are based in Saulnes (metal joinery, locksmith's shop, construction companies, painting companies, heating and air conditioning installations).

Saulnes is only connected by roads to Hussigny-Godbrange and Longlaville ; There is no border crossing to the northern border of Luxembourg. The Longlaville exit on the two-thirds completed Autoroute A30 is the last before the Belgian border. It connects the Longwy conurbation with Metz and Thionville as well as the Belgian Arlon .

supporting documents

  1. ^ Helmut Frühauf: Iron industry and hard coal mining in the Neunkirchen / Saar area. (= Research on German Regional Studies , Volume 217) Central Committee for German Regional Studies, Trier 1980, ISBN 3-88143-010-5 , p. 56.
  2. ^ Raty & Cie Saulnes / France - Le chemin de fer industriel with historical images. Retrieved January 28, 2013 (French).
  3. ↑ We're sitting here on a powder keg . In: Der Spiegel . No. 10 , 1979 ( online ).
  4. ↑ Cité, monument historique on actuacity.com. Retrieved January 28, 2013 (French).
  5. ↑ Saulnes on cassini.ehess.fr
  6. ↑ Saulnes on insee.fr
  7. ↑ Data on actuacity.com. Retrieved January 28, 2013 (French).
  8. ↑ museum on actuacity.com. Retrieved January 28, 2013 (French).
  9. ↑ Companies on annuaire-mairie.fr (French)

Web links

Commons : Saulnes  - collection of images