How the street names of France reveal its history

What do Victor Hugo, Louis Pasteur and Charles de Gaulle have in common? Gillian Thornton takes an enlightening stroll to discover how the street names of France reveal its history.

Every nation has its own way of celebrating famous people. Statues or plaques. Public buildings and parks. But in France, the ultimate accolade is to have a street or a square named after you. Preferably hundreds of them.

Iconic Frenchmen – though rarely women – are honoured all over the country with destinations you can plug into your GPS. Boulevard Victor Hugo. Avenue Louis Pasteur. Place Général de Gaulle. Some of course are local heroes, little known outside their hometown, but many have made a national or even international mark in science or politics, combat, literature or medicine. But how many can you identify?

The Big Hitters

France loves a literary hero and they don’t come much bigger than 19^th century poet and playwright Victor Hugo, author of Les Misérables. Hugo died in 1885, the year that microbiologist and chemist Louis Pasteur invented pasteurisation, a discovery that has earned him thousands of kilometres dedicated to his name.

Five years later, Charles de Gaulle was born in Lille, a career soldier who became a national hero when he broadcast a radio appeal from London urging the French to resist Nazi occupation. And whilst dates hardly trip off the tongue when you are asking for directions, the day of that famous broadcast is celebrated in streets and avenues dubbed Le 18 juin 1940. Look out too for Rue du 11 novembre, the date of the 1918 Armistice, and Rue du 8 mai, the German surrender of 1945.

Boulevard Raspail is a puzzle to many overseas visitors. Whilst not having quite the international status of Louis Pasteur, 19^th century scientist Francois-Vincent Raspail was both a Republican politician and a founder of the cell theory in biology. Who knew?

Military heroes

Eglise Ste Jeanne, Rue Jeanne d'Arc, Rouen — *Eglise Ste Jeanne, Rue Jeanne d’Arc, Rouen*

Frontline soldiers are widely commemorated on French streets. Enduring symbol of liberation, Jeanne d’Arc is one of just a handful of women whose name pops up town centres throughout the Hexagon. Famously burnt at the stake in Rouen in 1431 – where of course she has her own square – the peasant girl from Domrémy liberated Orléans from the English in 1428, claiming guidance from God.

Fast forward to the 18^th century and Général Lafayette crossed the Atlantic from Rochefort in his frigate Hermione to join the fight against the English following the Declaration of Independence on 4 July 1776. Meanwhile honoured military men from the 20^th century include Joseph Joffre, hero of the Battle of the Marne in 1914; Ferdinand Foch, Supreme Allied commander on the Western Front in 1918. and, in World War 2, Philippe Leclerc, liberator of Paris after serving in both North Africa and Normandy.

Politicians

French town planners have always loved a politician, especially a President of one of its five Republics. Drive down any Boulevard Thiers and you are in the shadow of Adolphe Thiers, first President of the Third Republic after the 1870 defeat of Napoléon III and his Second Empire, an empire that was strongly opposed by Léon Gambetta, a Republican deputy from Cahors. You will find Sadi Carnot popping up all over the place too, fourth President of the Third Republic but assassinated in 1894 by an Italian anarchist. And of course you are never far from a Place de la République!

World War I produced many popular politicians including Raymond Poincaré, President from 1913 to 1920, and three times Prime Minster. Other top ministerial men were Georges Clemenceau who held office from 1906 to 1909 and again from 1917 to 1920, and Aristide Briand who led no fewer than 11 Governments between 1909 and 1929, receiving the Nobel Peace Prize in 1926.

Human rights and liberty

With ‘Liberté, egalité, fraternité’ as its maxim, it is no surprise to find that France celebrates these values from the smallest hamlet to the heart of the capital. Socialist party leader Jean Jaurès crops up everywhere, remembered for founding L’Humanité newspaper in 1904 but sadly also for being assassinated ten years later.

Kings and queens rarely feature in a French name game, but the nation’s moral principles are drummed home in many a Boulevard de la République, Place de la Résistance, or Avenue de la Libération. Champions of free speech too. You will not travel far without finding yourself on a public place dedicated to 17^th century philosopher, writer and social reformer Voltaire.

Somewhat bizarrely for a country that takes pride in its artistic heritage, France dedicates few streets to Monet, Cézanne or their contemporaries outside of their local areas. But writers are held in high renown, especially if they unwittingly founded a literary movement along the way. Take Breton-born Francois-René de Chateaubriand, founder of Romanticism, and Emile Zola, hailed as the founder of Naturalism, a literary style that demonstrated the effects of social conditions and environment on the human character.

Local heroes

Many a medieval city centre or bijou village has a Rue des Tanneurs or Rue de la Monnaie, a reminder of the leather tanning and money minting that took place there in centuries past. Chartres is home to a grisly-sounding Rue du Massacre, not a major battle however, but the location for the local abbatoir! Among battles that are remembered however is Napoleon’s victory over the Russians in June 1807 at Friedland, commemorated in the comic strip capital of Angoulême where street names in the city centre are appropriately contained within speech bubbles.

Nice honours the two nations who put this Mediterranean gem on the winter holiday map with the Promenade des Anglais and the Quai des Etats-Unis, whilst Talmont on the Gironde estuary has a rare street named after a king. Not a French king though, but Edouard 1er d’Angleterre who founded the fortified village in 1284. Travel to the Avesnois area of the Nord department and you will even find Place des All Blacks in honour of the New Zealand soldiers who liberated the town in November 1918.

Get your head round even a few of this huge cast of characters and your travels around France will take on a whole new dimension.

By Gillian Thornton, one of the UK’s leading travel writers and a regular writer for The Good Life France Magazine and website.