Par
Frédéric Patard
Published on
Jan 3, 2025 at 6:56 a.m.
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That's it! They did it!!
Since the time that we have been talking about it (well over a century!), that the question has been a sea serpent of municipal councils, an inexhaustible chestnut for journalists and a subject of joke for many, and that in truth , we no longer believed in it much, the unthinkable impossible has happened : there is no more Cherbourgthere is no more Tourlaville or from Querquevillethere is no longer even a CUC. There is Cherbourg-en-Cotentin, that’s all!
Fusionnite
At the same time as Cherbourg-en-Cotentin, 36 new municipalities were also created at the start of 2016: Bricquebec-en-Cotentin, Carentan-les-Marais, La Haye, Vicq-sur-Mer, Montsenelle… Even thing for reunified Normandy, Upper and Lower. La Hague will take its turn in 2017, as the Cotentin Urban Community.
Gathered together on January 3, 2016, the elected officials of the five municipalities making up the Cherbourg agglomeration ratified the merger and gave birth to the new municipality of Cherbourg-en-Cotentin. In the process, they elected their mayor, Benoît Arrivé (until then president of the CUC), designated their delegate mayors (one for each of the 5 former municipalities), who will be assisted by 18 deputies and municipal councilors. With its 83,000 inhabitants, Cherbourg-en-Cotentin suddenly becomes the 4e city of Normandy (a rank necessary to have the voice that carries near Rouen, Caen, Le Havre, and in reunified Normandy) and rises to the 54e place in the hierarchy of French cities.
It is this argument which finally overcame the last local reluctance when a year earlier, during the traditional ceremony of wishes, Benoît Arrivé had brought up the idea of a greater Cherbourg. Add to this a State encouraging the regrouping of communities with favorable legislation, and Bernard Cazeneuve, first mayor of Cherbourg-Octeville in 2000 and become Minister of the Interior. And we will have understood that it was this time or never. But you should never say never…
And now to work…
A long journey
– 1886. To obtain the administrative unity of the port and rationalize its use (particularly from a military point of view), the government wants to extend the territory of Cherbourg by making it stick to that of the main harbor. Clearly, part of the Mielles de Tourlaville (up to the Port des Flamands) would integrate the town of Cherbourg. To the west, a coastal strip starting from Querqueville, encompassing the forts of Tôt and Couplets, would also reach Cherbourg. Finally in the south, the districts encompassing the forts of Fourches and Octeville would come under the Cherbourg banner.
The project will remain a dead letter.
– 1901. Former territory of the parish of Tourlaville, the commune of La Glacerie becomes independent.
– 1942/1943. Here again, the idea comes from the government (in this case, that of Vichy) which wants to group municipalities together on a national scale with the aim of administrative simplification and pooling of resources. Tourlaville, Equeurdreville, La Glacerie and Octeville would be annexed to Cherbourg. Consulted, the municipal councils of Tourlaville, Octeville and La Glacerie rejected the idea, Equeurdreville approved, Cherbourg was divided. In the end, the idea was rejected, and disappeared at the same time as the Vichy regime.
– 1965. Hainneville merges with Equeurdreville to form the commune of Équeurdreville-Hainneville.
– 1970. Birth of the Cherbourg Urban Community (CUC), which brings together the six towns of the agglomeration: Cherbourg, Octeville, Tourlaville, Equeurdreville-Hainneville, Querqueville and La Glacerie. Several services are shared (urban transport, water, household waste, etc.)
– 2000. Cherbourg and Octeville merge after a referendum organized in the 6 municipalities of the CUC. Only Cherbourg and Octeville voters responded favorably to the question of the merger of their commune with the others to form Greater Cherbourg.
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