In Petite-Rosselle, in Moselle, streets have only one letter as their name.
The residents enjoy it, even if it also causes them inconvenience.
A TF1 team met them.
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You have no idea, on these street signs, the name is in full. In this district of Petite-Rosselle, commune of Moselle, a letter is enough to identify the alleys. And that creates conversations worthy of a Raymond Devos sketch. “Is your street name?“, asks our journalist to a resident in the TF1 news report to see above. “C Street, it’s C Street, yesshe replies with an amused air on her doorstep. These are the shortest streets in France here, it makes me laugh“. “We are still proud of our streets A, B…says another resident. It’s the miners’ houses, it has a history“.
This district was in fact built in 1869 by a family of industrialists who exploited coal. To accommodate their underground miners, they hastily built these streets A, B, C, D, F, provisional names, but the war of 1870 changed everything. “There were bigger fish to fry than changing the names of the streetsexplains Daniel Deutsch, historian specializing in the history of the mines of Lorraine. Conflicts with the Germans existed and therefore changing the name of these streets was not a priority“.
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The wars have been over for decades, but the streets have not changed their names. This caused problems for Bertrand, a resident of rue B, for a long time when he filled out forms. “It’s always been complicated and even recently, it still is.he assures. MEven in more local businesses, rue B, we wait for the sequel… and there is none. We must emphasize the fact that ‘yes, I understand that you find that strange, but it’s correct‘”.
Thanks to recent updates, GPS finally knows these streets named with a single letter. This was not the case when Gilles started his deliveries. “I said to myself street B, either the name of the street is not complete, or it’s a jokesmiles the professional. But no, it does exist“.
No more question of changing the name of the streets, the inhabitants are attached to it. Anyway, in Petite-Rosselle, we don’t like to complicate our lives: in another neighborhood, the streets are just allowed a simple first name.
