Rennes


Rennes is a city in the east of Brittany in northwestern France at the confluence of the Ille and the Vilaine. Rennes is the capital of the region of Brittany, as well as the Ille-et-Vilaine department.
Rennes's history goes back more than 2,000 years, at a time when it was a small Gallic village named Condate. Together with Vannes and Nantes, it was one of the major cities of the ancient Duchy of Brittany. From the early sixteenth century until the French Revolution, Rennes was a parliamentary, administrative and garrison city of the historic province of Brittany of the Kingdom of France.
Since the 1950s, Rennes has grown in importance through rural flight and its modern industrial development, partly automotive. The city developed extensive building plans to accommodate upwards of 200,000 inhabitants. During the 1980s, Rennes became one of the main centres in telecommunication and high technology industry. It is now a significant digital innovation centre in France.
In 2015, the city was the tenth largest in France, with a metropolitan area of about 720,000 inhabitants. With more than 66,000 students in 2016, it is also the eighth-largest university campus of France. The inhabitants of Rennes are called Rennais in French. In 2018, L'Express named Rennes as "the most liveable city in France".

History

Administration

Since 2015, Rennes is divided into 6 cantons :
Rennes is divided into 12 quarters:
  1. Le Centre
  2. Thabor/Saint Hélier
  3. Bourg l'Évêque-Moulin du Comte
  4. Saint-Martin
  5. Maurepas-Patton-Bellangerais
  6. Jeanne d'Arc-Longs-Champs-Beaulieu
  7. Francisco Ferrer-Landry-Poterie
  8. Sud Gare
  9. Cleunay-Arsenal-Redon
  10. Villejean-Beauregard
  11. Le Blosne
  12. Bréquigny

    Mayors

The current mayor of Rennes is Nathalie Appéré. A member of the Socialist Party, she replaced retiring Socialist incumbent Daniel Delaveau, in office from 2008 to 2014.
Among previous well-known mayors are:
The mairie is right in the centre of Rennes.

National representation

The French Prison Service operates the Centre pénitentiaire de Rennes, the largest women's prison in France.

Geography

The ancient centre of the town is built on a hill, with the north side being more elevated than the south side. It is at the confluence of two rivers: the Ille and the Vilaine.
Rennes is located on the European atlantic arc, 50 km from the English Channel.
Rennes has the distinction of having a significant Green Belt around its ring road. This Green Belt is a protected area between the city proper and the rest of its urban area.

Climate

Rennes features an oceanic climate. Precipitation in Rennes is considerably less abundant than in the western parts of Brittany, reaching only half of the levels of, e.g., the city of Quimper, which makes rainfall in Rennes comparable to the levels of larger parts of western Germany. Sunshine hours range between 1,700 and 1,850 annually, which is about the amount of sunshine received by the city of Lausanne.

Population

In 2018, the inner population of the city was of 221,272 inhabitants, the Rennes intercommunal structure connecting Rennes with 42 nearby suburbs counted 450,593 inhabitants and the metropolitan area counted over 720,000 inhabitants.
Rennes has the second fastest-growing metropolitan area in France after Toulouse and before Montpellier, Bordeaux and Nantes.
The inhabitants of Rennes are called Rennais in French.

Sights

Rennes is classified as a city of art and history.

Historic centre

The historic centre is located on the former plan of the ramparts. There is a difference between the northern city centre and the southern city centre due to the 1720 fire, which destroyed most of the timber framed houses in the northern part of the city. The rebuilding was done in stone, on a grid plan. The southern part, the poorest at this time, was not rebuilt.
Due to the presence of the parlement de Bretagne, many "hôtels particuliers" were built in the northern part, the richest in the 18th century. Most of the monuments historiques can be found there.
Colourful traditional half-timbered houses are situated primarily along the roads of Saint-Sauveur, Saint-Georges, de Saint-Malo, Saint-Guillaume, des Dames, du Chapitre, Vasselot, Saint-Michel, de la Psallette and around the plazas of Champ-Jacquet, des Lices, Saint-Anne and Rallier-du-Baty.

The Parlement de Bretagne and city hall area

The Parlement de Bretagne is the most famous 17th century building in Rennes. It was rebuilt after a terrible fire in 1994 that may have been caused by a flare fired by a protester during a demonstration. It houses the Rennes Court of Appeal. The plaza around is built on the classical architecture.
On the west, the Place de la Mairie :
On the east, at the end of the Rue Saint-Georges with traditional half-timbered houses:
On the south-east:
The Place des Lices is lined by hôtels particuliers with the place Railler-du-Baty, is the location of the weekly big market, the marché des Lices.
Near the Rennes Cathedral is the Rue du Chapitre:
On this era are the former St. Yves chapel, now the tourism office and a museum about the historical development of Rennes and the Basilica Saint-Sauveur

Remains of the ramparts

Built from the 3rd to the 12th centuries, the ramparts were largely destroyed between the beginning of the 16th century and the 1860s.

Place Saint-Anne area

Place Saint-Anne
South-western, La Rue Saint-Michel nicknamed Rue de La Soif because there are bars all along this street.
South-eastern, the Champ-Jacquet square, with Renaissance buildings and a statue of mayor Jean Leperdit ripping up a conscription list.

East: Thabor park area

Area of Saint-Melaine square
;Notre-Dame-en-Saint-Melaine basilica,
Jardin botanique du Thabor a botanical garden on 10 hectares of land, built between 1860 and 1867.
17th century promenade "la Motte à Madame", and a monumental stairway overlooking the Rue de Paris entrance to the Thabor.

South city centre

The south city centre is a mix of old buildings and 19th and 20th centuries constructions.

South of the Vilaine

The Fine Arts Museum is situated on Quai Émile Zola, by the Vilaine River.
Les Champs Libres is a building on Esplanade Charles de Gaulle, and was designed by the architect Christian de Portzamparc. It houses the Brittany Museum, the regional library Bibliothèque de Rennes Métropole with six floors, and the Espace des Sciences science centre with a planetarium..
At Place Honoré Commeurec is Les Halles Centrales, a covered market from 1922, with one part converted into contemporary art gallery.
The Mercure Hotel is located in a restored building on Rue du Pré-Botté, which was the prior location of Ouest-Éclair, and then of Ouest-France, a premier daily regional newspaper.
There are large mills at Rue Duhamel, constructed on each side of the south branch of the Vilaine in 1895 and 1902.

Other sights

To the northwest of Rennes, near Rue de Saint-Malo are the locks of the Canal d'Ille-et-Rance of 1843.
There are two halls of the printer, Oberthür, built by Marthenot between 1870 and 1895 on Rue de Paris in the eastern part of the city. Oberthür Park is the second biggest garden in the city.
The 17th century manor of Haute-Chalais, a granite château, is situated to the south of the city in Blosne Quarter.

Parks and gardens

Parc du Thabor contains a compact but significant botanical garden, the Jardin botanique du Thabor. The University of Rennes 1, with a campus in the city's eastern section, also contains a botanical garden and collections.

Economy

Local economy include car manufacturing, telecommunications, digital sector and agrofood.
The ITC firm Orange is the largest private employer with 4,800 people. PSA Peugeot Citroën, is the second largest private employer in the metropolitan area of Rennes, with 3,000 people. PSA opened a manufacturing plant at La Janais in Chartres-de-Bretagne in 1961. Technicolor, one of the biggest firms in TV and cinema broadcasting in the world employs over 500 people.
Rennes is the 2nd concentration of digital and ITC firms in France after Paris. Rennes was one of the first French cities to receive the French Tech label in November 2014.
Moreover, Rennes hosts the 3rd public research potential in digital and ITC sectors in France, after Paris and Grenoble, with 3,000 people working in 10 laboratories, like well-known IRISA, IETR, IRMAR, DGA-MI, SATIE, etc.
It is also the third innovation potential in agrofood French industry with many firms in this field, an agro campus and a big international and professional expo, the Space.
Other large firms located in Rennes include the restaurant conglomerate Groupe Le Duff, the first French newspaper Ouest France and Samsic Service.

Culture

Rennes is known to be one of the most festive cities of France. It invests heavily in arts and culture and a number of its festivals and ''Travelling are well known throughout France. During the 80s, Rennes was often cited as the French town of rock and new wave music.

Concert halls

Rennes is well equipped with musical facilities:
There are also five museums in Rennes:
In addition to this list, there are art facilities such as 40mcube exhibition space or the Centre for contemporary art La Criée.
There are also miscellaneous cultural places: the dance dedicated place the Triange, two "Art et Essai" - art house cinemas - cinemas called l'Arvor and Cine TNB. Surrounding cities house many other cultural venues.

Media

Rennes was one of the first towns in France to have its own local television channel 'TV Rennes', created in 1987.
Rennes has also local radio stations and local newspapers or magazines.

Local culture

Local languages

In Brittany, two regional languages are spoken: Breton and Gallo. In and around Rennes, Gallo was traditionally spoken as a local language, but Breton has always been spoken by regional migrants coming from the western part of the region.
Nowadays, the Breton language is taught in two Diwan schools, some bilingual public and Catholic schools, in evening courses, and in university.
The municipality launched a linguistic plan through Ya d'ar brezhoneg on 24 January 2008.
In 2008, 2.87% of primary school children were enrolled in bilingual primary schools, and the number of pupils enrolled in these schools is steadily growing.

Local food

Specialties from Rennes include:
Many other Breton specialties are seen at the Marché des Lices, a weekly market held every Saturday morning.

Education

The Rennes agglomeration has a large student population.
The city has two main universities; Université de Rennes 1, which offers courses in science, technology, medicine, philosophy, law, management, and economics, and Université Rennes 2, which has courses in the arts, literature, languages, communication, human and social sciences, and sport. The official website of Université Rennes 2 identifies that facility as "the largest research and higher learning institution in Arts, Literature, Languages, Social Sciences and Humanities in the West of France."
There are a few École Supérieures in Rennes, like the École Normale Supérieure de Rennes on the Ker Lann campus, just outside Rennes, the Institut d'études politiques de Rennes or the ESC Rennes School of Business.
There is also branches of École Supérieure d'Électricité – Supélec and Telecom Bretagne in the east of the city, a campus of the École pour l'informatique et les nouvelles technologies, a campus of the École pour l'informatique et les techniques avancées, and the grande école Institut National des Sciences Appliquées, which is next to the "École Nationale Supérieure de Chimie de Rennes".
The computer science and applied mathematics research institute, IRISA, is located on the campus of the Université des Sciences, near Cesson-Sévigné. The Délégation Générale pour l'Armement operates the CELAR research centre, dedicated to electronics and computing, in Bruz, a neighbouring town.
Catholic University of Rennes is a Catholic university founded in 1989.
The city is also home to an American study abroad program for high school students, School Year Abroad, in which students are immersed in French culture through five classes in the language and a nine-month home stay.
The École Compleméntaire Japonaise de Rennes, a part-time Japanese supplementary school, is held in the Collège Anne de Bretagne in Rennes.

Sport

Football club

Rennes has well-developed national road, rail and air links.

Public transport

Local transport is based primarily on an extensive bus network and a light metro line that was inaugurated in March 2002 and cost €500 million to build. The driverless Rennes Metro is in length and has 15 stations, including one designed by architect Norman Foster. A second light metro line is being planned, it should be operational by 2020, and the construction began in 2014.

Cycling

Rennes provides other modes of local transport: a bike sharing system with 900 bicycles. Rennes created the first system of modern French bike sharing.

Roads

The city is an important hub of Brittany's motorway network and is surrounded by a ring road: the Rocade. The construction of the bypass was started in 1968 and completed in 1999. It is 31 km long, it has 2 lanes each way and toll free. Many other expressways are connected to the Rennes ring road for local and regional service. By road, Saint-Malo can be reached in 45 minutes, Nantes in 1 hour, Brest in 2 hours and 30 minutes, Paris in 4 hours, Bordeaux in 5 hours and Bruxelles in 6 hours and 30 minutes.

Railway

Rennes has a major French railway station, the Gare de Rennes, opened in 1857. Since July 2, 2017, it is now one hour twenty-seven minutes by TGV high-speed train from Paris. Train service is available to other big cities in France such as Lyon, Marseille, Lille and Strasbourg.
Rennes is also an important railway station for regional transport in Brittany. The TER Bretagne provides links to Saint-Malo, Nantes, Redon, Vitré, Saint-Brieuc, Vannes, Laval, Brest and many other regional cities. It is served by Gares station on the VAL Rennes Metro.

Airport

Rennes is served by Rennes Brittany Airport, located from the centre to the south-west in the commune Saint-Jacques-de-la-Lande.
It notably operates regular or seasonal flights to Paris-Charles de Gaulle, Lyon, Marseille, Nice, Toulouse, Barcelona, Palma de Mallorca, Rome-Fiumicino, Southampton, Dublin, Exeter, Manchester, Amsterdam Schiphol, Madrid Barajas, Birmingham, London-City, London-Gatwick and daily flights to London Southend Airport with Flybe.

Notable people

Twin towns – sister cities

Rennes is twinned with:
Friendly towns within France
Pacts of cooperation
Sponsorship'''
Rennes also has the only Institut Franco-Américain in France.

Broadcasting facilities