A Little History
This page offers a concise look at the history of Bergues from earliest days right up to the present.
We recommend that you read this page before embarking on ‘The Town Walk’ and ‘The Fortifications Walk’ because it provides a hopefully informative introduction to Bergues which will add to your enjoyment in providing useful background knowledge to what you will see when you do go on the two Walks.
Updated July 2024
The Groenberg with La Tour Pointue on the left and La Tour Carée, the two dominant parts of l’Abbaye de Saint-Winoc that are still standing today. Hidden from view behind the enclosing trees and bushes on this, the south side of the town, lies part of what is arguably Bergues’s greatest monument, the fortifications built by Vauban in the seventeenth century. We look in detail at the remains of the abbey in ‘The Town Walk’, while discussion of Vauban’s fortifications may be found in ‘The Fortifications Walk’ on this website - we hope you will join us on a voyage of discovery!
A Little History
Bergues lies just some 10 kilometres south of Dunkirk and first distinguishes itself, in this vast region of flat plain and polder intersected by waterways, in being formed around and on a hill. True, a hill of no more than 22 metres above sea level, but a hill nonetheless. It is the starting point of the town’s foundation (the earliest settlement that is thought to have existed was located on the hill and was called Groene Berg (literally, ‘Green Hill’).
The very flatness of this whole region has always made it vulnerable to invading armies and we will see, later on, just how much Bergues has suffered over the centuries due to international conflict. So that hill was a natural ‘position of advantage’ and as such, settlement was inevitable because it was a location that could be better defended.
Dune landscape on the North French coast. The dunes that mark the character of the coastal area were in earliest times - and still are now - ever changing, with the tendency over time to extend north-eastwards
Pax Romana Belgica 1-3 AD. In Roman times, the coast did not lie where it does now and Bergues did not exist
Bergues and its immediate environs today. Of notable importance, the three canals that provided early good transport routes, especially that from Dunkirk; the proximity of the French/Belgian border which effectively divides a region once homogenous; and the preponderance of little villages dotted around the town, overwhelmingly with Flemish names and dedicated to agriculture. Locations important to the history of Bergues include Wormhout to the south and Hondschoote to the east
the modern French/Belgian border disected the region into two halves…
…and the linguistic divide just before the French Revolution
French Flanders could be seen as being linguistically divided in two, rather like Belgium today, with the majority-speaking Flemish being mostly located north of the river Lys and the majority-speaking French south of the Lys. Bergues is located in the northern half, locally known as the Westhoek (meaning literally the ‘west corner’ of the old County), a title it shares with its eastern neighbour just across the border in Belgium.
Bergues lies in the French Département named 'Nord’ (which in 2016 was incorporated into the larger Hauts de France region of today) but the area which the town belongs to is locally known as French Flanders, ‘La Flandre française’ (French) or ‘Frans-Vlaanderen’ (Dutch). This is because it was once part of the great County of Flanders (‘Graafschap Vlaanderen’, ‘Comté de Flandres’) which dates from the time of Boudewijn I (Baldwin I), first Count of Flanders, in 862 up to 1713 when the County was finally and irrevocably annexed by France.
The little village of Killem, a few kilometres east of Bergues, is typical of the many small Flemish settlements in the French Westhoek. Here we see l'Eglise Saint-Michel and the Chez Noye, an architypal estaminet opposite Van Robaeys Frères, the largest employer here and fittingly for the Westhoek, a clothes and fabrics manufacturer
Still today, there is an unmistakably Flemish atmosphere to this area, present in its buildings and streets but also in its culture and cuisine. The Flemish-speaking population in the Westhoek, still dominant in the mid-nineteenth century, declined considerably after the 1930s to the point where in the 1970s, it was only the elderly who knew it and used it in everyday conversation.
In the interim, various considerations associated with successive French governments seeking national unity (primarily via education), together with the French-Belgian border and the two World Wars, conspired to make the region ‘more French’ to the detriment of Flemish. But many would argue that the relegation of Flemish to a second language started at the time of Louis XIV in his insistence that French, and only French, be spoken in the courts of Flanders.
The official symbol of the Flemish Community for centuries, the lion of Flanders...
Reuze-Papa and Reuze-Maman of Cassel
Food and drink have retained a strong link with traditional Flemish cooking, as have the superb beers to be found in the area
During the twentieth century the name Westhoek was relegated in favour of ‘French Flanders’ or simply ‘Département du Nord’, the idea being to better appropriate the region into the national whole. For the area’s inhabitants it was a reorientation from the ‘Flemish east’ to the ‘French north’, to the detriment of belonging to the wider Flemish cultural region. There was a resurgence of interest in maintaining Flemish in the 1990s, for future generations, but this initiative did not fall on fertile ground.
However, there is unquestionable pride expressed by residents for the Flemish cultural heritage and few pubs and bars (among many other places) are missing some visible reference to it. The food has retained a strong link with Flemish cooking, as have the beers to be found in the area. In contrast to the fate of the Flemish language, in current times it is clear that the Nord is happy to energetically promote this distinctive cultural heritage as a ‘plus’ for the region’s identity and its tourist trade.
The noisiest expression of this is the processions held in many localities, a feature of the Westhoek which is derived from kermisse, popular local celebrations held at various times of the year. The word is derived from the Flemish kerk (church) and misse (mass) so the origin is clear i.e. religious, but this link is today almost completely absent. Apart from the games, competitions and general revelry, the distinguishing element in the procession is the appearance of géants (Flemish 'reuzen') or 'giants'. The earliest of these date back to pre-Revolutionary times but there have been many more created in the last century. They usually represent figures prominent in local legend so in Cassel, for example, it is the Reuze and his wife that are paraded, the legend being that Reuze-Papa and Reuze-Maman, carrying a clod of earth to fill a ravine, quarrelled and dropped the clod, forming the famous Mont Cassel on which hill the town sits. In Bergues, the géant is l’electeur de Lamartine, Alphonse de Lamartine, celebrated because of his tireless promotion of the town’s interests as a Député.
L'electeur de Lamartine of Bergues in the nineteenth century…..
….and today, still the owner of all he surveys….
So it comes as no surprise when looking at a map of the region that many of the towns and villages still maintain their Flemish names and Bergues was no exception. Its original Flemish name was Sint-Winoksbergen. Why this name?
The first part of the old Flemish name comes from a Breton monk named Saint Winoc who was active in this area in the seventh century, seeking converts to Christianity. He had helped found a monastery at Wormhout, just a few kilometres south, which in turn was a dependency of the Abbey of St Bertin in St Omer, a regional centre south of Bergues. Winoc died at the beginning of the eighth century and his remains were brought to Bergues by Baudouin le Chauve (‘Baldwin the Bald’, Baldwin II), the second Count of Flanders, who also fortified the village so as to better withstand the marauding Normans. Baldwin’s fortifications extended to other locations in the area, in defence of the County border. Baldwin II is also thought to have founded the church dedicated to St Martin, as part of a castrum (a fortified military camp) to the south-west of the hill. This castrum, in its current form as an oval of streets forming the heart of Bergues, survives to this day and we will visit it as part of ‘The Town Walk’.
A: the Groenberg with the abbey church;
B: the Grote Markt, today the Place de la République;
C: the oval plan of the castrum, the original fortification
Seventeenth century plan
The Vita Sancti Winoci (The Life of St Winoc) comprises 164 pages of beautifully illustrated manuscript and dates from the twelfth century. Written by a monk named Drogon, it is now conserved in La Biblioteque Ancienne within the Town Hall, one of 6000 or so books that were rescued from the abbey at the time of the Revolution
The second part of the name Sint-Winoksbergen comes from the hill itself; berg is the Flemish for ‘hill’, ‘mountain’ or ‘peak’. And it was here where in 1022 Baudouin Belle Barbe (‘Baldwin of the Fine Beard’, or Baldwin IV), fourth Count of Flanders, founded the Abbey of Saint Winoc near the castrum, but on the Groenberg, as the hill is today called. The abbey was fortified by a perimeter wall which enclosed its grounds but did not apparently extend to protect the castrum. It is thought that the abbey grounds may have provided sufficient refuge for the town’s residents, in times of peril; Baudouin le Chauve’s earlier castrum walls were in a state of disrepair by this time.
Prior to the foundation of the abbey, the Roman conquest of this region in the first century AD brought with it a cessation of hostilities between warring tribes and the construction of a civilisation that was to know peace for over two centuries. It was another town built on a hill that was the local centre, Cassel (Castellum Menapiorium), which lies some 20 kilometres south of Bergues (and a town well worth visiting too).
Roman rule and its adoption of the local population to perform many of the roles required to foster conditions beneficent to trade and agriculture, was a boon to the region as the locals so employed became wealthy themselves and this attracted merchants from other regions to settle here too.
But this era was also turbulent. The region suffered inundation from the sea which laid waste to farmsteads and population centres. The marauding Saxons took advantage, plundering anything that was left and the Franks invaded too, making roads insecure and disrupting trading routes. The Romans restructured to suit, fortifying the roads and transferring regional government from Cassel to the more secure Tournai. They also negotiated with the Franks where they secured a foothold (especially after the more concerted Frankish invasion at the beginning of the fifth century) and in doing so, established a fragile peace.
The Franks were tribal warrior farmers, not interested in just burning and looting as the Saxons but instead in occupying and settling the areas they conquered. The alliance between the Romans and the Franks permitted a degree of prosperity to return but by the end of the fifth century, Rome had been all but banished from the region.
With the conversion of Clovis, the Frankish king, to Catholicism after his defeat of the Alemanni in 496, the process of converting the Franks to Christianity could begin.
Saint Vaast, Bishop of Reims (and later of Cambrai and Arras), travelled extensively in the region but with little initial success; the population preferred to remain wedded to its pagan traditions. It was only a century later, during the time of the Franks’ King Dagobert I (603-639), a profoundly religious ruler, that the Catholic church via its bishops and monks was able to make progress in converting the population to Christianity.
The ruins of l'Abbaye de Saint-Bertin in Saint-Omer (left). This once vast institution was ordered by the Commune in 1830 to be demolished, a herculean task which, whilre providing stone for the new Town Hall, was never fully executed. The church's tower survived until 1947, when it collapsed due to damage inflicted during World War Two. The statue is of Suger, who co-founded the abbey with Bertin and as Abbot of Saint-Denis near Paris, the burial place of the French Kings, wrought changes to his church which heralded the arrival of the Gothic style in Christian architecture
And it is at this time when a missionary by the name of Bertin set off from his home near Constance (then in the Frankish Duchy of Alamannia, today Switzerland) to join his friend Omer, also from Constance, who had been instructed by the Church to join the fight to convert the population to Christianity and became Bishop of Thérouanne. Today with around 1000 inhabitants and some 40 kilometres south of Bergues, Thérouanne’s church and the entire original town were destroyed by Charles V in 1553 in revenge for his defeat at the hands of the French at the siege of Metz.
Just a few kilometres north of Thérouanne, Bertin founded a convent on the banks of the river Aa which became the Abbey of Saint-Bertin; Omer built a chapel nearby. It was from these religious centres that the Church set out to found others in the region, such as the abbey at Wormhout, where St Winoc was based.
The region thereby became known as a great monastic centre in Europe.
The arrival of the abbey at Sint-Winoksbergen in 1022 and the greater security afforded against the Normans (who in the ninth century frequently invaded the region) resulted in the monks encouraging the establishment of a textile industry here; trade in drapery and linen (used to make Roman togas) had already been established in Roman times.
A Landhuys (an administration building, similar to a Town Hall) was built on the market square as was a beffroi, a tall and highly-decorated tower which was a symbol of the town’s emancipation in the form of a charter defining certain privileges, granted by Baudouin V to the town’s powerful merchants, involving local regulations and taxation.
At the same time, the landscape around Bergues changed dramatically with extensive deforestation and draining of the land for argriculture. The tools used also improved with, for example, the replacement of the wooden plough with iron. The watermill was joined by the windmill in the twelfth century with, in the next century, the invention of the camshaft which added to the mill’s capabilities.
The beffroi and landhuys at Bergues, erected in the eleventh century, were burnt to the ground in 1383
The engraving above represents the buildings as they were in the Sixteenth Century
The town became a member of the London-based Hanseatic League, one of the most successful trading alliances in history which counted over 200 northern European cities among its members. Sint-Winoksbergen became an important trading and administrative centre, well-connected via the canal to Dunkirk and the sea, as well as to Nieuwpoort and Ypres via the Colme to Veurne in today’s Belgium. The Colme is the oldest manmade watercourse in France with its west course, the Canal de la Haute Colme, extending from Bergues to Watten (connecting with the navigable river Aa). Both this and the east course, the Canal de la Basse Colme from Bergues to Hondschoote (and onwards as the Bergenvaart to Veurne in Belgium) are long decommissioned. Via the Haute Colme and the river Aa, Sint-Winoksbergen was linked with St Omer. Main roads between towns improved in being paved, even if the minor roads remained rutted dirt tracks.
The Middle Ages, despite being a period of prosperity for Sint-Winoksbergen, was also a period of calamity and strife, a frequent calamity being fire (the abbey suffered this no less than three times, in 1083, 1123 and 1215) and strife in the form of invasion. Long-standing tensions between England and France erupted in 1337 such that in 1383 the English-French conflict known as the Hundred Years War came to Sint-Winoksbergen and resulted in the town’s destruction by the French; the conflict finally came to an end in 1453 with a French victory. In 1558 the town was put under siege by the French marshal Paul de Thermes as part of the twelve-year war between Spain and France, which the Spanish Empire (with some help from the English) went on to win. The town was again destroyed and the abbey too. Sint-Winoksbergen, at the time of the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648 which brought an end to the conflict, now became part of the Spanish Netherlands.
The Mont-de-Piété was a public pawnshop and is today the town's museum
Spanish rule led to a short period of prosperity in agriculture, textiles and even the Arts (the Mont-de-Piété in Sint-Winoksbergen, a local architectural gem, dates from this time) and further work was undertaken on the town’s defences, including the Biernepoort (Porte de Bierne), the Neckerstor and the walls and semi-circular towers between the Casselpoort (Porte de Cassel) and Bergepoort (Porte du Mont, today the Tour des Faux-Monnayeurs). But war again broke out when France, led by a young Louis XIV, declared war on the Spanish Netherlands, overrunning the town in July 1658.
Apart from the calamities of fire and battle, the other great destroyers were disease (the Black Plague arrived from Italy during the mid-fourteenth century) and famine (the fourteenth century saw regular famines in France, brought about by poor weather affecting crop yields which devastated what had been a growing population).
Louis XIV
Then came the War of Devolution 1667-68. Louis XIV launched another offensive against the Habsburg-controlled Spanish Netherlands when in 1665, Philip IV of Spain died and Louis claimed the Spanish territory because the dowry promised to him on his marriage to Maria Theresa (Philip’s daughter) had never been paid.
Sint-Winoksbergen at this time lay within the Spanish Netherlands so it was on 6 June 1667 that the corps of Maréchal d’Aumont de Rochebaron invaded and captured the town. After negotiations between The Dutch United Provinces and France about sharing the spoils of French victory in the Spanish Netherlands failed, the Dutch, English and Swedes formed ‘The Triple Alliance’ against France which did not stop the French from continuing to battle for further advantage, albeit briefly.
But the escalating cost of the war to the French and the fact that the Spanish, whose military efforts had been engaged with the Portuguese until the Treaty of Lisbon in 1668, were now able to turn their attention to the French, made Louis announce a ceasefire and start negotiations in Aachen. The Triple Alliance pressed its case, such that France lost much of what it had gained but Sint-Winoksbergen, along with a clutch of other Flanders towns, was to remain definitively in French hands with the conclusion of the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713. Sint-Winoksbergen was henceforth to be known as Bergues.
La Couronne de Saint-Winoc is Vauban's major achievement at Bergues. Today, it is a peaceful nature oasis
Sébastien le Prestre de Vauban
The Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle of 1668 and French possession of what was now Bergues brought about a notable change in the town’s aspect. Sébastien le Prestre de Vauban was the Sun King’s foremost military engineer and strategist and he was called upon to design and supervise the fortifications at the newly-conquered town. Vauban supervised and/or designed hundreds of fortifications in France which included those at Dunkirk and southwards along the border; he also supervised and directed many sieges. In Bergues, his efforts were concentrated on the Hondschootepoort (Porte d’Hondschoote) and around the Groenberg and on to the Casselpoort (Porte de Cassel); the older fortifications, where they still served, were improved.
The fortifications that remain today are truly impressive and constitute the town’s most remarkable asset. The Fortifications Walk on this website takes you on an informative and leisurely tour of the town walls as they stand today.
The eighteenth century saw more turmoil in the form of the Flanders Campaign in the French Revolutionary Wars. With the Revolution ongoing, Europe’s other monarchies felt some alarm at events and coalitions were formed to attempt to halt Revolutionary progress. Great Britain sent a force consisting of their own and Austrian, Hanoverian and Hesse-Kassel troops to take Dunkirk as it was seen as strategically important, both as a bargaining chip in future peace negotiations and as a possible British base in Europe.
The British-led force arrived and duly laid siege but was unable to take the port. The Battle of Hondschoote in September 1793 (Hondschoote lies just 10 kilometres east of Bergues; once a local centre of the felt industry, it is today a quiet town of some 4000 inhabitants which has conserved its fine church and town hall) determined a British withdrawal to Veurne as the French (using troops based at Bergues as part of their offensive) attacked supporting Austrian forces in the area, removing the protection afforded to the siege troops. The coalition forces withdrew.
'La Bataille de Hondschoote' is a painting of 1840 by Bellangé which hangs in La Salle des Delibérations in the town's Hôtel de Ville
Besides the changes to the town’s fortifications, the eighteenth century also saw the construction of military buildings, in 1724-25 the Citerne du Roi, a water reservoir built to serve in times of siege; and the Themines barracks on the what-is-now Rue de la Gare was built in 1732-36. Around the middle of the century, the Porte de Hondschoote and Porte de Cassel were rebuilt and various new buildings constructed in the town centre and in the abbey grounds. The canals in the town were widened in the period 1720-24 and starting in 1761, major work took place on the canal to Dunkirk to deepen and widen it so as to permit passage to seagoing ships.
But with the Revolution came the destruction of the Church and with it the end of l’abbaye Saint-Winoc, with the expulsion of the religious community in 1791 which was followed the year after by the sale of the abbey furnishings and in 1798, the sale of the abbey itself. In less than ten years, little remained of the buildings as they were demolished for their bricks and stone to be used far and wide, although some material was bought back by the town and used locally. What remains of the abbey today is the original abbey church crossing tower (much patched up but still impressive) and la tour pointue (‘the pointed tower’) to the west of it. There is little doubt that social functions performed by the Church, such as education and helping the poor, suffered as a result of revolutionary fervour which effectively disbanded the institutions providing them.
the abbey and grounds before the Revolution
At the time of the Revolution, Bergues was still an important administrative and judicial centre with wealthy civil servants, lawyers and the military making their home here. But this changed when Bonaparte transferred many state offices to Dunkirk and with ecclesiastical institutions also gone, Bergues started to suffer a reverse in its fortunes.
This was exacerbated by the long-standing decline in the textile industry caused by conflict and competition but also by the beginnings of mechanisation which badly affected the domestic linen industry; nearby Hondschoote suffered particularly badly with hundreds of weaving shops closed. But Bergues’s status in some areas of commerce remained, such as the market for grain which endured up to and throughout the nineteenth century where it remained the largest in French Flanders and one of the largest in the Low Countries.
Bergues’s Sous-Préfecture (police station) lost its role to Dunkirk
the station prior to the First World War
The nineteenth century was another period of great change. With the coming of the railways – the line between Dunkirk and Paris via Hazebrouck was inaugurated in 1848, with the station of Bergues opened in 1857 – and parallel improvements to the road network, all greatly enhanced by the Freycinet Plan of 1879, French Flanders was opened up to markets further afield, a factor vital in stimulating change. The fact that the region had such a long tradition in textile manufacture, for instance, meant that mechanical cotton spinning was an early part of the region’s industrial development. By far the greatest industrial, mining and heavy industry centre was the Lille-Roubaix-Tourcoing agglomeration and it was this area that grew the quickest. This area also saw the greatest concentration of Flemish speakers as many flocked to it from the countryside but they also came across the border from Belgium.
Bergues was, at this time, still a majority Flemish-speaking community and it is notable that despite the profound effects on the nature of economic activity brought about by the industrial revolution, French Flemish identity remained largely unaffected.
This period of rapid industrialisation, where outside the Lille-Roubaix-Tourcoing area, produced only local new industry and even then overwhelmingly in medium-sized towns such as Hazebrouck, with the much smaller Bergues remaining much as it was in the eighteenth century. While the mechanization of agriculture remained small-scale (mechanical seeders and harvesters started to make their appearance) and the tools thus predominantly traditional, there came other improvements in the form of chemical fertilizers (sodium nitrate) alongside the import of guano via Dunkirk. Crop yields increased dramatically, particularly those of wheat and oats while new crops, like chicory and sugar beet, were introduced. Regarding livestock, the number of sheep decreased in favour of pigs and cattle. The demand for agricultural produce continuously grew as the cities and towns expanded.
At the end of the nineteenth century, French Flanders was still one of the least-urbanised areas of Europe, which meant that the countryside retained its dominant position in a semi-industrial rural economy, an aspect we still see in and around Bergues today as it has remained an agricultural centre with associated industry servicing it.
In Bergues itself during the nineteenth century, further work was undertaken on the fortifications, but the most notable building effort was the new Hȏtel de Ville (Town Hall)
The north-west corner of the Rue Nationale at the Place de la République, after the German bombardment of May 1915. The Second World War would later finish the job in removing everything you see in this contemporary postcard
During the First World War, the front line held along the river Yser at some 30 kilometres east of Bergues. Although the town was hit occasionally by German shells which destroyed several buildings, the fate that befell towns such as Belgian Dixmude and Ypres was not to happen to Bergues. The decision by the Belgians to have recourse, in the face of overwhelming odds in the form of the highly-mechanized and more numerous German Fourth Army, to the centuries-old defence of flooding the platteland, saved Bergues from almost inevitable destruction. From the 10 November 1914, the date that Dixmude finally fell to the Germans and the rising floodwater made their further advance impossible, a 3-5 kilometre-wide muddy moat stretching over 30 kilometres southward from the North Sea coast at Nieuwpoort, separated the opposing armies for the next three-and-a-half years.
Ypres was the location of three battles between October 1914 and November 1917 which resulted in the complete obliteration of the town. After the war, its famous Cloth Hall was rebuilt to match the original building (along with many others). Diksmude too decided to rebuild in the idiom of what it had lost. In Bergues, the little damage done by enemy shelling was repaired and where entire buildings were lost, they were also largely rebuilt in their original style.
Diksmude and Ypres, the former much more badly damaged than Bergues…
.....and the latter almost completely reduced to rubble
The Second World War saw Bergues bombarded again (but far worse – some three-quarters of the town was destroyed) in May 1940 by the German Luftwaffe, with General Hermann Hoth’s Panzer Corps occupying Bergues at the end of that month. The speed with which the Germans had advanced (invading the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Belgium and France within three weeks), enabled by the inadequacy of allied forces in confronting and defeating that advance, resulted in the famous rescue of routed British and French troops at Dunkirk in the first week of June; Bergues was just a few kilometres south of the allied defensive perimeter.
Canadian troops, then part of the ‘Operation Crossbow’ allied forces, arrived at Bergues on the 7th or 8th of September 1944 which prompted a fierce battle in the face of a strong German defense, probably intended as a holding operation while they made plans for an eventual retreat towards Dunkirk. The Germans did depart but not before blowing up the remains of the beffroi and the tower of St Martin’s church. They didn’t, however, touch the Tour Carrée or the Tour Pointue on the Groenberg and with good reason - the site was a burial ground for more than a thousand German soldiers. The Canadians finally liberated Bergues on 16 September 1944.
The beffroi and landhuys after the May 1940 German aerial bombardment. The beffroi was not to survive....
....and neither did the tower of Saint Martin's church
The period immediately after the Second World War saw further modernisation during les trentes glorieuses (‘the glorious thirty years’) from 1945 to 1975, a period which saw France enjoy steady economic growth, full employment, the development of a consumer society, a ‘baby boom’ and the introduction of social security and pension payments. Regional identities played second fiddle to the promotion of France as a country unified in its intent to prosper after devastating conflict and occupation.
Above, the Groenberg soon after the end of the Second World War, dotted with temporary housing and on the left, the new housing built in the 1950s to replace it and any old houses beyond repair
In Bergues, reconstruction was initially bedevilled by a lack of funds but its status as a town of special architectural and historical significance was never doubted by central and local government. The Administration des Monuments Historiques reinforced this message and called for funding to be made available to undertake repair and restoration. This was eventually agreed and took the form of grants being made available to building owners, with the works required being supervised by the Administration des Beaux-Arts.
Additionally, a quantity of temporary houses was built, starting in the spring of 1947. This was followed by a significant new building programme in the 1950s, the results of which we still see today in the old town (and which is visited on The Town Walk page), with further development later outside the town walls, predominantly in the area immediately east of Bergues where the neighbouring village of Hoymille saw considerable expansion to effectively become a suburb of the town.
In the Westhoek generally, increasing prosperity in the postwar years meant significant change in the agricultural industry in the form of still greater mechanization. This in turn had the effect of reducing the rural population in the area as machinery took over their jobs. This process was aided and abetted by the state via its economic policies as well as state spending. Cultural changes in the area resulted too, for example from the growth in television viewing, where instead of perhaps going to an estaminet (a traditional Flemish bar) just across the border, people now stayed at home watching football (and a national league game, not a local one).
Some 14 kilometres west of Bergues and located on the Canal de Bourbourg at its junction with the Déviation du Canal de la Haute Colme which today provides for canal traffic to the river Aa, Coppenaxfort is a tiny hamlet that exemplifies the loss of local industry to leaner, more modern competitors. Above, the ever-deteriorating complex of buildings that formed the Duriez distillery (1857-1986). Coppenaxfort also once had a flour mill (Chevalier, 1911-1980) and a brewery (Dambre, 1769-1952). On the right, not the interior of the Duriez plant but the interior of one of hundreds of once busy ateliers, decades later still seeking a new use or, more likely, demolition if the site is ever purchased for redevelopment
A further example of just how fragile the Nord-Pas de Calais economy is can be seen at Hoymille, the suburb developed post World War II out of the original village next door to Bergues.
The Carrefour supermarket that had stood for years on the Route d’Hondschoote became an Intermarché, which proved to be a portent for closure in June 2023. It stands, together with its defunct station service, awaiting a new use or perhaps demolition.
Some local farmers responded to the closure by arranging a ‘farmers market’ on the site once a week. It is not known if this initiative has prospered.
More importantly, what is prospering is the large centre commercial just south of Bergues at the Faubourg de Cassel, where there are at least three supermarkets, a petrol station and a McDonalds. For those residents of Hoymille with a car (the overwhelming majority), the centre is barely ten minutes’ drive away.
It is doubtless this, plus the ability to order pretty much anything on the internet and get it delivered to your door, that has sounded the death knell for the Intermarché. One wonders how much longer the post office and pharmacy will survive, the last establishments in Hoymille that may be regarded as providing essential services. But then again, there’s a post office in Bergues as well as several pharmacies….
The 1970s saw the beginning of decline with industrial crises and the difficulties of post-industrial transition which led to an even greater dependence on the state. The effects of this decline are still present in the region today with stubbornly high unemployment, high state benefits uptake and low educational attainment. Successive French governments have attempted to tackle these problems and others with them via local economic development schemes intended to attract new businesses (especially in the tech sector) but there is a continuing mismatch of local population skills with these new businesses. This is being addressed by better education policy for children but also better training or re-training for adults.
It is interesting in this context to note that in the 2017 French Presidential Elections, in the second round where there were just two candidates, a majority of Bergues’s voters (who actually voted) chose Emmanuel Macron who achieved 52.1%. But in second place and just a few percentage points behind, came Marine Le Pen with 47.9%. Some 26% of Bergues’s eligible voters decided to stay at home. In the Nord region as a whole, some 56% voted for Macron whereas in the neighbouring Pas-de-Calais, it was Le Pen who won with 52% of the votes cast.
In the second round of voting in the Presidential Elections of 2022, with the choice again being either Emmanuel Macron for a second term, or Marine le Pen for the first time ever, the results in Bergues were much closer - Macron received 50.92% of the vote, Le Pen 49.08%, representing a more acute 50/50 split in the Berguois vote compared to 2017. Abstention was slightly higher this time, at 26.45%.
Bergues has therefore mirrored, in recent times, a movement noted throughout France, that of ever-increasing disatisfaction with ‘establishment politics’ in favour of radical, right-wing ‘people’s politics’. It is clear that the destruction of industrial jobs, which started after ‘les treintes glorieuses’, is a deep scar that has yet to be healed in the Hautes de France region, where the vote again reflected a 50/50 split between the two leading candidates and resulted in a narrow win for Marine Le Pen.
2024 saw the end of ‘business as usual’ in French politics.
After 2022 the political map of the Nord – Pas de Calais region showed notable gains for the Rassemblement National (RN) but the other parties, Ensemble and various left-wing groups, were still well represented. The results of the European Elections in June 2024, however, reflected a definitive and this time, nationwide move to the political right. In the Nord-Pas de Calais, the political map changed dramatically to reveal 97.4% of the communes had put the RN in first place. Only in the Métropole lilloise did the left, in the form of La France Insoumise in four communes, and the centre, in the form of Renaissance in fourteen, come first. This was an almost unbelievable result, greeted with alarm and dismay by both left and centre parties and, Europe wide, heralded the arrival of the far right in the European Parliament in numbers never seen before.
In Bergues, the results reflected those of the Nord region. La France Revient, Marine le Pen’s reinvented National Front, achieved first place with 38.91% of votes cast on a turnout of 51% of those registered to vote. Besoin d’Europe, a liberal, centrist and pro-European electoral alliance, came in second place with 18.62%. La France Insoumise took third place with just under 5%.The expected low turnout for the European Elections (just over half of citizens in Bergues entitled to vote, actually did) was replicated nationwide.
On the same day that the European Election results in France became known, Emmanuel Macron called for a national ballot, saying that the French ‘had to choose’ now that it was clear a majority had voted for the far right. In effect, Macron laid down the gauntlet to the French to prove, at the ballot box, that they really wanted a far-right government.
Voting in the French Legislative Elections of 30 June and 7 July 2024 in Bergues stirred 67% of Berguois voters to cast a vote and in both rounds, confirmed the established tendency of more voters turning out for national elections than European. Results from the first round gave a clear win to Les Républicains-Rassemblement National of 46.37%, rather more than they gained at the European Elections. In second place, Horizons-Ensemble, a pro-Emmanuel Macron alliance with a respectable 36.74%, surprising given the general dissatisfaction of the French with his government’s record. In third place, La France Insoumise achieved 13.63%, more than doubling its European Elections result.
Nationally, once again, the far-right demonstrated its popularity in capturing 33% of the vote in the first round. There then followed a pact between left and centre parties that resulted in only those that had achieved the most votes would go forward to the second round, meaning all other left and centre parties would withdraw, even if they had qualified for the second round. This strategy aimed to coalesce all left and centre party votes under the banner of one left or centre party, which qualified to go through to the second round in each constituency, to thereby defeat the far right.
In Bergues, the second round proceeded in accordance with the rule that only the two lead candidates from the first round progress to the second and there was no ‘adjustment’ as to which party would run in second place because Horizons-Ensemble came well ahead of La France Insoumise in the first round. The result almost mirrored that of the Presidential Elections of 2022. Not for the first time, while the first round result indicated strong support for the far right and supposed a win for them in the second, it was in fact the liberal grouping Horizons-Ensemble that just managed to win in Bergues with 50.15% of the vote. Les Républicains-Rassemblement National came second with 49.85% i.e. just 0.30% of the vote behind. I suspect the RN demanded a recount!
The way that the Berguois voted was not reflected in the national results where the left-wing Front Populaire, a grouping of far-left, communist, socialist and green parties, somewhat surprisingly achieved first place with 180 seats, but did reflect the fact that the political centre ground was not wiped out by the expected far right surge. The far right in fact obtained 142 seats compared to the Ensemble coalition’s 159 and therefore ended up in third place. The results produced a hung parliament where the far right had expected to win handsomely. Negotiations on forming a new government are, in late July 2024, ongoing while a ‘caretaker government’ is in place.
Bergues today, while still an important local agricultural centre (the largest local enterprise by far in terms of annual turnover is France Cereales and food preparation has an important role in the region), has concentrated on improving its image as a tourist destination to improve the local economy (completion of renovation works to the beffroi occurred in 2019, for example). Out of a total population oscillating around 3600, some 1500 are registered as employed in predominantly small businesses of 1-9 people (and these have been growing in number with almost 25% involved in the property market, which at the time of writing - early 2020 - continues to grow in the Nord) while almost 25% of households have a taxable annual income of €10,000 or less. Almost half of the 1000-or-so families living in Bergues are couples with no children and nearly 30% of residents are over 60 years old. More than 90% of the town’s homes are registered as first homes.
Planning and building development are controlled not by the town council but by the Communauté de Communes des Hauts de Flandre (Community of Municipalities of Hauts de Flandre or CCHF), these responsibilities having been transferred to this organisation in December 2015. It is heartening to note that, given the town’s extraordinary setting and fine architectural heritage, the Plan Local d’Urbanisme (Local Development Plan or PLU) makes explicit that any new building development will take place only on sites already built upon or otherwise manmade, thereby ensuring the security and preservation of the local natural environment. This is backed up by a local sustainable development plan which details what may and may not be done within a series of zones which cover the extent of the municipality. Indeed, the Plan makes it clear that redevelopment opportunities are limited while expansion opportunities are almost zero, because of the tightly-defined extent of the old town by the encircling fortifications, and the green areas all around the town on the outside of the fortifications (although the area around the station looks to be an exception to this rule). Nonetheless, the PLU clearly states that the town’s objective, to be reached by 2025, is to achieve a population of 4500 residents i.e. an increase of around 1000 over the current population size. Some 240 new homes are envisaged to be provided by the same date.
These objectives are, in July 2024, looking very unlikely.
In the five years up to 2023, France enjoyed a boom in its property market such that prices rose by nearly 30%. In every year since 2017, more than 900.000 (occasionally in that period, more than 1 million) property transactions took place, a record in France.
But this boom came to an end in 2023. A deadly combination of inflation, high interest rates, and tightening supply took hold as the effects of the war in Ukraine hit France and the rest of Europe. Interest rates of around 1% in 2021 rapidly became 4% in May 2023, leading to action by the Banque de France to tighten money supply. This, together with government restrictions introduced in 2022 that made 25-year mortgages the maximum and the amount borrowed limited to 35% of the borrower’s income, led to a virtual collapse of the mortgage market. It became very difficult for buyers to secure mortgages at affordable rates. And those looking to move home decided to stay put.
The entire property sector in France, representing some 13% of the country’s GDP, saw estate agents, construction companies, developers and credit intermediaries falling into insolvency as borrowed capital was left unpaid. Land prices for new-build projects reached highs never before seen and construction materials’ costs rose to 20% above pre-Covid prices.
With interest rates now stable (July 2024) and the sale price of residential property expected to decrease by around 6% this year, there is hope of the beginnings of a turnaround. But the Banque de France is not expected to lower interest rates until 2025 at the earliest.
Bergues has suffered from all this too. Projects for new housing which have long been in the pipeline e.g. the redevelopment of the old Gendarmerie on the Rue de l’Arsenal, are indicating little if any activity. The same applies to the old Gaz de France site at the Rue au Gaz (see The Town Walk page for commentary).
There has, however, been recent activity in Bergues on a different but related front. It is that of ‘holiday lets’. In 2020, there were 14 properties registered as such. In 2024, that has risen to 28. And that doesn’t count the chambes d’hôtes (11). In short, the number of properties advertised as holiday lets on rental sites, additional to those offered by tourism professionals, has increased. And that is because tourism is apparently doing well in Bergues; more people who visit decide they’d like to stay rather than just pass through.
However, the Mairie is very aware of the effects on the town that could result, were this growth to continue. It is conscious of the fact that instead of increasing the number of permanent residents in the town, as it has stated it wished to do, the population is in fact reducing. In 2015, there were 3805 residents; in 2021, there were 3560. This is because of the predominantly elderly population that inhabits Bergues. With the increase in property prices during the boom, only those with the money to afford it moved in, and those tended to be retirees who by that time in their lives had the funds to buy. The Mairie is keen to change this scenario by being able to offer homes to young people, something made easier in new-build projects such as the Gendarmerie where 20 of the 50 homes built will be ‘social housing’ with affordable rents. But they need to be built and that’s not happening right now.
Coupled to this, though, is the problem of empty homes in Bergues. Owners of such properties are usually either unwilling or unable to renovate and/or sell, with the cost of renovation outweighing the likely sale/rental price on the market and if sold without renovation, the poor return a derelict property would likely fetch. The Mairie believes there are 40-50 properties in Bergues standing empty and is, together with the Communauté de Communes des Hauts de Flandre, determined to remedy this. A first step is to get in touch with the owner, encouraging them to carry out any works necessary to bring the property back onto the market. In tandem with this, a re-examination of the tax on empty homes is proposed, the desire being to increase it. And there is always the possibility, as a last resort, of compulsory purchase.
It will be interesting to see how the municipality’s desire to provide for a more varied population of differing ages will be achieved, once the property market has recovered, against the increasingly lucrative use of homes as short-term holiday lets thanks to the town’s status as an attractive local holiday destination. Will the Airbnb model tempt empty home owners to renovate their properties to suit this market? Will the Mairie have to impose a limit on this activity so as to maintain its drive to achieve a resident population of 4500, and not comprised of mainly pensioners?
We said just a little earlier that ‘the region sees itself as left behind’. We also said earlier that the de-industrialisation that occurred post-World War Two was proving difficult to remedy, and more than seventy years later, it still is. At the time of writing, August 2021, the Région Hauts-de-France (which includes the Département du Nord) has a 9.4% unemployment rate, the highest of the French regions. From the beginning of the new millenium, jobs in the construction, agricultural and industrial sectors have all declined steadily, with the region losing something in the order of a quarter of its workforce in the industrial sector between 2000 and 2016 alone. The factories that once employed them closed because manufacturing was being increasingly outsourced to cheaper emerging markets.
But there are quite recent signs that this gruelling, slow decline may be about to change. With the rise of the far right political movement in the Hauts-de-France, plus the action taken by the gillets jaunes, central government under President Emmanuel Macron’s leadership has paid greater financial and political attention to the area. With the Covid-19 pandemic has come a reassessment of France’s dependence on externally-sourced products, such that Macron has pushed to bring production back within French borders. While that ‘push’ has been centred on products associated with the Covid-19 pandemic, it has additionally focussed on other products that France not only needs but which could also be exported. The EU is also examining this issue urgently, recognising that dependence on unreliable partners for essential goods is damaging to EU states’ economies.
In the 1960s, the French automotive industry invested heavily in the region, assisting in cushioning the blow that came with the closure of the coal mines and associated industries. That industry has also suffered from cheaper competition from abroad and today faces further obstacles, one being emissions targets and the drive to halt production of petrol and diesel vehicles. Macron’s government has, in no small measure, succeeded in attracting new foreign investment into the region, as his government cuts red tape and puts public money into assisting new industries such as batteries and hydrogen. The Region has complemented this initiative with its own funding which includes training/re-training its workforce.
Some 60 kilometres south of Bergues lies the town of Douvrin where, in June 2021, it was anounced that a new battery manufacturing company was to start production in 2023, employing some 1400-2000 people by 2030. Macron stated that he expected deals like this to herald ‘the transformation of the auto industry’.
While there is little doubt that any recovery in the Région Hauts-de-France is fragile, the opportunities offered by the coming transformation of industry and production generally in the quest to prevent destructive climate change, together with the lessons learned from the Covid pandemic, may just prove the tonic the region needs to eventually prosper. Bergues, with its agricultural industry base, will not be immune to these changes and it will be interesting to see how the town fares in the future.
The Town Walk and The Fortifications Walk pages on this website will enable you to see the Bergues of today, a fascinating combination of the old and the new, the small and the monumental, the busy and the peaceful. And all unmistakably French!