Alençon is a commune in Normandy, France, capital of the Ornedepartment. It is situated west of Paris. Alençon belongs to the intercommunality of Alençon.
History
The name of Alençon is first recorded in a document dated in the seventh century. During the tenth century, Alençon was a buffer state between Normandy and the Maine regions. In 1049–1051, William Duke of Normandy, later known as William the Conqueror and king of England, laid siege to the town, which had risen in support of the Count of Anjou along with two other towns of the Bellême estates, Domfront and Bellême. According to Duke William's chaplain and panegyrist, William of Poitiers, the citizens insulted William by hanging animal skins from the walls, in reference to his ancestry as the illegitimate son of Duke Robert and a tanner's daughter. On capturing the town, William had a number of the citizens' hands and feet cut off in revenge. Alençon was occupied by the English during the Anglo-Norman wars of 1113 to 1203. The city became the seat of a dukedom in 1415, belonging to the sons of the King of France until the French Revolution, and some of them played important roles in French history: see Duke of Alençon. The French Revolution caused relatively little disorder in this area although there were some royalist uprisings nearby. A long-standing local fabric industry gave birth to the town's famous point d’Alençonlace in the 18th century. The economic development of the nineteenth century was based on iron foundries and mills in the surrounding region. In the first half of the twentieth century the city developed a flourishing printing industry. Alençon was home to St.Marie-Azélie Guérin Martin and Louis Martin, the parents of St. Thérèse of Lisieux. They were the first spouses in the history of the Catholic Church to be proposed for sainthood as a couple, in 2008. Zélie and Louis were married at the Basilica of Notre-Dame in Alençon on 13 July 1858 and spent their whole married life in Alençon, where Thérèse was born in January 1873 and spent her early childhood until the death of her mother in 1877. On 17 June 1940 the German Army took occupation of Alençon. On 12 August 1944 Alençon was the first French city to be liberated by the French Army under General Leclerc, after minor bomb damage. After the war the population sharply increased and new industries settled. Many of these were related to plastics and the town is now a major plastics educational centre.
Climate
Population
Heraldry
Economy
In the seventeenth century, Alençon was chiefly noted for its lace called point d'Alençon. Today, Alençon is home to a prosperous plastics industry, and, since 1993, to a plastics engineering school. MPO Fenêtres is a local PVC windows company established in Alençon since 1970, is one of the first company in Alençon with around 170 employees and a turnover of 28 million euros in 2008. It is also the oldest French PVC windows company still in activity.
Education
Transport
Alençon is linked by the A28 autoroute with the nearby cities of Le Mans to the south and Rouen to the north. The A88 autoroute links the A28 just north of Alençon to the coastal port of Caen. A comprehensive town bus system operates from 7:00 to 19:00. There is a comprehensive network of cycle paths.
Marie-Azélie Guérin Martin, the mother of St. Thérèse of Lisieux who, along with her husband Louis Martin, is one of the few married couples ever to be beatified by the Catholic Church.
