Last modified: 2024-10-26 by olivier touzeau
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![[Flag]](../images/f/fr-94-cm.gif)
Flag of Champigny-sur-Marne - Image by Olivier Touzeau, 1 December 2022
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Champigny-sur-Marne (77,724 inhabitants in 2021; 1,130 ha), is a commune in the southeastern suburbs of Paris, in the Val-de-Marne department.
The site has been occupied since prehistoric times. Raised on the hills overlooking the Marne, Champigny was a hunting ground where the herds come to quench their thirst. In the Neolithic period, men who became farmers found fertile land there. During Antiquity, the place was always occupied since in the 19th century, in the current district of Boullereaux, an old cemetery of 6000 m² was discovered, used by the Gauls up to the Merovingian kings of the early Middle Ages. Little by little Champigny grew in importance: in 1545 François I authorized Champigny to hold a market every Thursday, then, in 1553 King Charles IX granted Champigny the right to organize two fairs a year: this is the origin of the always popular pig fair. In the 18th century, the village remained limited to the heart of the current town center, around the Saint-Saturnin Church and the hamlet of Coeuilly. Le Plant and Bois l’abbé, property of the rich abbey of Saint-Maur, were forest estates. Champigny then had around 1,000 inhabitants.
During the 1870 war, while Paris had been surrounded by Prussian troops since September 18, several attempts were made to break the enemy stranglehold. One of them, the most important, took place between November 30 and December 2 during the Battle of Champigny. The population, which had been evacuated to Paris at the beginning of September, returned after the armistice (in February) to find a village completely ravaged. The town was also often called Champigny-la-Bataille until the following conflict.
It was only from the middle of the 19th century and in the first half of the 20th century that Champigny began to change significantly. The rail revolution made it possible to travel faster and further: it was the beginning of housing estates (districts of Plant and Coeuilly) in the parisian suburbs. In 1881, the number of inhabitants had more than doubled since the beginning of the century: 3100 inhabitants. The movement accelerated with the twentieth century since the population doubled this time in 10 years: there were 6700 inhabitants in 1901.
At this time, new bridges were built: Pont de Champigny then Pont de Nogent in 1899, which opened up the city, isolated in a loop of the Marne. But Champigny remained a more popular and rural town than its neighbors Nogent or Saint Maur, as the main rail network bypassed it. The modernization of the city really intervened with Albert Thomas as mayor of Champigny in 1912. A close friend of Jean Jaurès, he was a minister during the First World War, founder of the International Labor Office in Geneva. He embarked on a period of development of public services at all levels: municipal library, management, museum, post and telegraph, schools, technical services, roads, garbage collection, electricity...
During the interwar period, the population increased rapidly with the rural exodus and the arrival of European immigrants. In 1936, the city had 29,000 inhabitants. Garden cities, an avant-garde architectural project for the time, were built to allow workers to find decent accommodation: running water, electricity, sanitary facilities... In 1945 the city remained very heterogeneous with still rural districts (edges of the Marne with market gardeners, hillsides with winegrowers, the Plateau cereal growing area), other "swampy" areas (Mordacs) and long-standing urbanized districts or very partially like Coeuilly. The wood of Bois l'abbé, used during the occupation for heating, hardly exists anymore. The housing crisis after the war and the arrival, unanticipated by the State, of migrants from Europe (Portuguese and Italian mainly) and later from other continents for the reconstruction of the country greatly accelerated the process of urbanization everywhere in the parisian suburbs. 14,000 Portuguese workers lived in a shantytown on the Plateau, left empty by the decline of agriculture and declared unbuildable by the public authorities for the construction of highways and other road projects. The neighborhoods of Mordacs, whose marshes have dried up, and Bois l'abbé were completely disrupted by the OPAC (public office for development and construction) of Paris, which set up two large complexes there, to accommodate quickly, apart from the French capital on land liberated by agriculture. The population increased, reaching it peaks in 1975 at 80,291 inhabitants.
Olivier Touzeau, 1 December 2022
The flag, observed in the mayor's office during the 60th anniversary of its twinning with Musselburgh (UK/Scotland), Bernau bei Berlin (Germany) and Rosignano Marittimo (Italy), is white with the coat of arms and the name of the commune in an arch above (photo, photo).
The arms of Champigny-sur-Marne are blazoned:
Quarterly, 1. Azure a crescent Or surmounted by two stars of the same, 2. Gules a bunch of grapes stalked and leaved Argent, 3. Gules an ancient ship sails and rigging Argent, on a river of the same issuant from the base 4. Azure a crescent Or surmounted by a star of the same The boat evokes the Marne, the bunch of grapes confirms the importance of the vine. The other two districts consecrate the aristocratic ascent of the Bochart family The motto "Ny fer ny feu, rien ne me peult" ("Neither iron nor fire, nothing can destroy me"), alludes to the Battle of Champigny.
Olivier Touzeau, 1 December 2022