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127-545: Le Touquet-Paris-Plage ( French pronunciation: [lə tukɛ paʁi plaʒ] , Picard : Ech Toutchet-Paris-Plache ), commonly referred to as Le Touquet ( / l ə t ʊ k eɪ / ), is a commune near Étaples , in the Pas-de-Calais department , northern France . It has a permanent population of 4,213 (2021), but it welcomes up to 250,000 people during the summer , so the population at any given time during high season in summer swells to about 30,000. Located on

254-463: A liquor store , a hairdresser's salon, a photographic studio , two bookshops, two coal depots, a public bath, a school and a church. By 1897, Le Touquet got its first casino , the Casino de la Plage . Most of the original residents came from Amiens , later followed by residents of Pas-de-Calais and neighbouring departments. An English investor, John Robinson Whitley , took note of the growth and saw

381-503: A beach resort. The French government first acknowledged the name in 1892 in an order of Prime Minister Émile Loubet and the minister of the interior. The law of 28 March 1912, which separated Paris-Plage from Cucq into a separate commune , further recognised its existence. This part of the name fell into disuse in common speech, but it was the subject of a trademark dispute with Paris . The French capital decided to launch Paris-Plages (then Paris-Plage), an artificial beaches programme on

508-516: A business opportunity as a developer. The new resort, which he named Mayville, was planned to be a 'meeting place' between wealthy Englishmen and Frenchmen with an emphasis on sports, but catering more to the British elites. The idea of a luxury resort itself was not new: Dieppe and particularly Deauville (next to Trouville), both in Normandy , were already developing in a rather similar way. Nor

635-461: A case study about three soldiers he was treating in a casino in Le Touquet. Nearby Étaples housed an enormous military camp for training and dispatching soldiers directly to the frontlines. Even though enlisted soldiers could go out with the garrison's permission to that town, entry to Le Touquet, a much more tempting attraction, was allowed for officers only so that the low-ranked wouldn't spoil

762-483: A conservation site at the Pointe du Touquet specifically to prevent new construction projects planned there. Since 2012, the area is further protected by national legislation as Parc naturel marin des estuaires picards et de la mer d'Opale  [ fr ] , one of the eight French marine parks that, in this case, cover most of the eastern English Channel coast. Le Touquet's area also presents particular interest from

889-630: A construction boom in the village. This rapid expansion contributed to the government's creation of a separate commune in 1912. Numerous prestigious hotels were built, and at its peak of prosperity in the Roaring Twenties , the resort boasted the biggest casino in France by revenue, the Royal Picardy , an ultra-luxury hotel with a sparkling water swimming pool, and hundreds of villas. The bustling town had good transport connections thanks to

1016-459: A distinctive literary tradition. The Ch'ti language was re-popularised by the 2008 French comedy film Welcome to the Sticks ( French : Bienvenue chez les Ch'tis ; French pronunciation: [bjɛ̃vny ʃe le ʃti] ) which broke nearly every box office record in France and earned over $ 245,000,000 worldwide on an 11 million euro budget. The first person plural often appears in spoken Picard in

1143-404: A few examples, The Atlantic , one of the top hotels of Paris-Plage, opened its doors in 1904, followed by Golf Hotel in 1908. In 1903, the old Daloz villa was converted into a concert hall, and that became Casino de la Forêt ten years later. That place still serves as a gambling facility, today known as Casino Barrière. In the centre of the town, a new narrow-gauge tram line  [ fr ]

1270-540: A fictional town in the James Bond franchise that in some passages of the novels is shown as near Le Touquet, is in fact based on it. A certain revival for the wider region came with the democratisation of leisure as the right to two-week paid leave was assured by the Matignon Agreements in 1936, but Le Touquet essentially remained an upper-class British resort. The main investments of the 1930s were

1397-487: A hamlet of neighbouring Cucq was identified as Toucquet les Mauvaises Femmes ( lit.   ' Toucquet Bad Women ' ). While the origins of the name 'Touquet' are obscure, the 'Paris-Plage' part is easily traceable. On 29 April 1882, Alphonse Daloz  [ fr ] created the first subdivision within the cape's area and called it Paris-Plage, following advice of the late Hippolyte de Villemessant , editor-in-chief of Le Figaro . In 1874, Villemessant wrote

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1524-598: A language distinct from French. A 1999 report by Bernard Cerquiglini, the director of the Institut national de la langue française (National Institute of the French Language) stated: The gap has continued to widen between French and the varieties of langues d'oïl , which today we would call "French dialects"; Franc-comtois , Walloon , Picard, Norman , Gallo , Poitevin , Saintongeais , Bourguignon-morvandiau , Lorrain must be accepted among

1651-523: A large number are unique to Picard—principally terms relating to mining or farming . Here are several typical phrases in Picard, accompanied by French and English translations: Cardinal numbers in Picard from 1 to 20 are as follows: Picard is not taught in French schools (apart from a few one-off and isolated courses) and is generally only spoken among friends or family members. It has nevertheless been

1778-543: A letter that commended the qualities of then-empty beach of Touquet. He described it as 'more beautiful than that of Trouville ' and that he wanted to make it an ' Arcachon of the North'. Both cities are renowned seaside resorts . Le Touquet, in his view, would resolve the 'Paris-on-Sea ( Paris-Plage ) problem' for the people living in Paris – in other words, that it would become the destination of choice for Parisians looking for

1905-454: A local agriculturist . Visiting about the same time, Hippolyte de Villemessant , editor-in-chief of Le Figaro , was also impressed and coined the name 'Paris-Plage' for the future development, not least due to its fairly developed infrastructure. In 1847, nearby Étaples was connected with Paris by railway. A semaphore on Cape Touquet was built eight years before that, and two lighthouses were inaugurated in 1852 to prevent ships from sinking in

2032-406: A local scientific academy also agreed with this finding. The academy added it could be that the cape's name came from the fact that it is located on the extremity of Picardy . An alternative theory posits that Touquet is related to the words 'forest' and 'wood'. Auguste Longnon suggests that placenames like Le Touchet may have a link to Le Touquet. If that is true, Le Touquet's name derives from

2159-403: A luxury sports resort. In 1903–1906, Pierre de Coubertin , the founding father of modern Olympic Games , was appointed sports director of Paris-Plage. During his tenure, he inaugurated the community's sports centre ( champ des sports ), featuring a running and cycling track , a cross country running course as well as facilities for fencing and lawn tennis . In 1904, a horse racing course

2286-441: A new distillery, but they were still losing money. Thus, Alyon abandoned the area in 1847, while Marion and de Naurois ceded their plots in 1850 and 1855, respectively, to Daloz or his brother-in-law, Mr. Rigaud. Daloz and Rigaud decided that agricultural use was no good for their land. They stabilised the dunes with beachgrass and decided to plant a forest instead. In 1780s, Nicolas Brémontier  [ fr ] did just that in

2413-500: A regional language along with Walloon , Gaumais ( Lorraine ), Champenois ( Champagne ) and Lorraine German in its 1990 decree. The French government has not followed suit and has not recognized Picard as an official regional language (in line with its policy of linguistic unity, which allows for only one official language in France, as per the French Constitution ), but some reports have recognized Picard as

2540-523: A regular horsebus connection from Étaples to Paris-Plage. Also in 1884, the first hotel, Hôtel Saint-Georges , appeared in Le Touquet, but it became a simple villa with the opening of the first of the big hotels of the resort, Le Grand-Hôtel , in 1887. In the meantime, 1886 saw the launch of a dedicated newspaper for the community, Paris-Plage . In the early years of Paris-Plage, the Daloz family (Alphonse Daloz died in 1885) exercised full police powers over

2667-479: A sham amphibious landing in the vicinity of Boulogne and Le Touquet, but it failed to reach the intended goal of diverting German soldiers from other fronts to northern France. A second diversion immediately preceding D-Day landings , known as Operation Glimmer , had disastrous effects on the city. Over 2,000 bombs were thrown on Le Touquet in June 1944, and at least 51 people, including mayor Jules Pentier, died during

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2794-563: A tram line  [ fr ] and a narrow-gauge train line to Étaples  [ fr ] , and, since 1936, a dedicated airport . Great Depression dealt some problems to the resort but it still remained popular with the British upper class. World War II , however, did not spare the settlement and brought destruction as the Germans deployed about 100,000 mines and the Allies bombarded

2921-624: A variety of very closely related dialects. It is difficult to list them all accurately in the absence of specific studies on the dialectal variations, but these varieties can probably provisionally be distinguished: Amiénois, Vimeu-Ponthieu, Vermandois, Thiérache, Beauvaisis, "chtimi" (Bassin Minier, Lille ), dialects in other regions near Lille (Roubaix, Tourcoing, Mouscron, Comines), "rouchi" ( Valenciennois ) and Tournaisis, Borain, Artésien rural, Boulonnais. The varieties are defined by specific phonetic, morphological and lexical traits and sometimes by

3048-449: A word meaning 'ornamental wood'. Albert Dauzat and Charles Rostaing also endorsed this hypothesis. Their proposed evolution of the toponym starts from La Touche ( Tochia in 13th century) and Les Touches ( Tuschiae in 14th century). Two steps then happened: first, an -ittum suffix was added, which gradually became -et ; after that, the [ʃ] sound changed to a [k] sound, a common transition in Normandy and Picardy. In their opinion,

3175-469: Is almost fully covered by dunes stretching several hundred metres inland. The Opal Coast has good conditions for their formation: winds predominantly blow from the west directly at the coast, the beaches and the bottom of the estuary are made of fine sand and psammophile plants are willing to colonize the areas, thus strengthening the dunes. It was not always the case, as during the Little Ice Age ,

3302-470: Is also located in the northern part of a natural region called Marquenterre  [ fr ] . On the other side of the Canche estuary is Étaples, a local transport hub and the nearest railway station. The other neighbour of Le Touquet is the commune of Cucq, to which the town belonged before 1912. That commune includes another resort called Stella-Plage , directly south of Le Touquet. Significant towns in

3429-418: Is both head of the commune and of the municipal council for the same period of time. The current term started in 2020 and will finish in 2026. Previous mayors include Léonce Deprez (1969–1995; 2001–2008) and Jules Pouget (1934–1963, with several interruptions due to World War II). For local administration purposes, Le Touquet defines ten neighbourhoods with one or two trusted members called ambassadors, whose role

3556-620: Is now the easternmost part of Le Touquet and the village of Trépied was where the land ended. The shore was in a form of a cape ('corner'), limited by the river Canche to the north and the English Channel to the west. This interpretation found support in Flemish linguists analysing the names of the northern French coast. In fact, the Dutch name for Le Touquet is Het Hoekske , 'The Corner'. A 1982 publication about Le Touquet by

3683-626: Is one of the langues d'oïl and belongs to the Gallo - Roman family of languages. It consists of all the varieties used for writing ( Latin : scriptae ) in the north of France from before 1000 (in the south of France at that time the Occitan language was used). Often, the langues d'oïl are referred to simply as Old French . Picard is phonetically quite different from the North-central langues d'oïl , which evolved into modern French. Among

3810-549: Is rather uniform throughout the year, but there tends to be more significantly more rain in the last three months of the year. The hottest temperature ever recorded was 39.9 °C (103.8 °F) on 19 July 2022 ; the coldest recorded conditions were on 8 January 1985. Météo-France expects that by 2050, climate change will lead to increased temperatures in all seasons (particularly autumn), increased fire and heatwave risks, as well as some changes of precipitation patterns towards fewer days with stronger rain. Data presented as of

3937-441: Is similar to that of French. It is undoubtedly the easiest for French speakers to understand but can also contribute the stereotype that Picard is only a corruption of French rather than a language in its own right. Various spelling methods have been proposed since the 1960s to offset the disadvantage and to give Picard a visual identity that is distinct from French. There is now a consensus, at least between universities, in favor of

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4064-604: Is to be a relay between the municipal government and the neighbourhood. They may, though need not be, members of the municipal council. Le Touquet belongs to the Communauté d'agglomération des Deux Baies en Montreuillois (CA2BM), an intercommunality created in January 2017 with the seat in a small inland town of Montreuil-sur-Mer . Le Touquet sends four municipal councillors to the 82-members intercommunal council. Statute enumerates its powers and responsibilities, of which among

4191-527: The cour d'assises (the court deciding felony cases) is in Saint-Omer and the administrative court of the first instance is in the regional capital of Lille. Picard language Picard ( / ˈ p ɪ k ɑːr d / , also US : / p ɪ ˈ k ɑːr d , ˈ p ɪ k ər d / , French: [pikaʁ] ) is a langue d'oïl of the Romance language family spoken in

4318-728: The Gironde for the same purpose, and his forest became the precursor to today's large Landes woods . It is likely that Daloz drew inspiration from that experiment. The harsh winter of 1860/61 destroyed the saplings, so the two owners had to plant the trees again. Daloz was serious about keeping title to the land, so in 1864, he built a small palace. He also put a lot of effort in the forest, but as an amateur silviculturist , he made some mistakes, such as not thinning his forest well or often enough or insisting on not touching any of his 'beautiful trees', whatever their condition. That said, Daloz's efforts received significant praise in an 1875 booklet by

4445-476: The Grande Tringue , which flows from marshland into the small, dredged estuary . The valley of the Canche has been occupied by man since ancient times because of the productive nature of the land. The unhealthy aspect of marshland means much has been done over the centuries to drain the land efficiently, which has brought about the partial destruction of its original character. The principal activities of

4572-463: The Opal Coast of the English Channel at the estuary of the river Canche , the commune is one of the most renowned seaside resorts in France, with a wide range of sports and leisure activities. The name 'Le Touquet' has been attested since the mid-18th century to designate the cape next to which the town was built. Alphonse Daloz  [ fr ] , a public notary in Paris , then bought

4699-562: The Seine , trademarked the name and then demanded that Le Touquet cease and desist from using the Paris-Plage part for commercial purposes. Le Touquet replied with its own trademark submission the following year. In January 2008, Paris settled with Le Touquet, allowing the latter to retain its second part of the name unchanged. The earliest traces of human presence in the vicinity of Le Touquet are estimated to be 240,000 years ago, based on

4826-553: The dunes to stabilise them. In 1791, during the French Revolution , the abbey of Saint-Josse was expropriated and its lands were nationalised. The government then tried to sell the land, but Le Touquet's warrens were of little value, so when a local magistrate assessed the land's value in 1827, he found that it was still state property. After the survey, the government offered to sell 1,500 ha (3,700 acres) in installments of 60 hectares, but had to wait until 1836 for

4953-552: The electoral roll in Le Touquet elect its municipal council ( conseil municipal ). According to the Regional and Local Authorities Code and the Election Code, Le Touquet has 27 municipal councillors ( conseillers municipaux ) elected for six-year terms on a proportional representation basis but with bonus seats for the majority list. That council then elects the mayor ( maire ), currently Daniel Fasquelle ( LR ), who

5080-520: The prefect of Pas-de-Calais. A unit called Agence d'attractivité en Opale-Canche-Authie is a tourist board for the local region, and is separate from CA2BM, but a Cour des Comptes report in 2020 found it to be in organisational chaos, not least because its precise role is unclear. Central government organs are not represented in Le Touquet. The subprefecture for Le Touquet is located in Montreuil-sur-Mer, about 18 km (11 mi) to

5207-413: The 'biggest, most luxurious hotel in the world', and boasted a pool of sparkling water. In the meantime, the new horse racecourse was unveiled in 1925. A new post office building that was architecturally similar to a church standing there before opened its doors in 1927. Four years later, the commune built a new swimming pool next to the beach with ample facilities and four trampolines. Even though Le Touquet

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5334-467: The 1960s, to create an artificial environment on the estuary. The work included creating a harbour and a marina. This was supposed to be “compensation” for extracting the waters of the Canche at Hesdin in order to supply the city of Lille . Of course, this threatened to destroy the rich wildlife and flora of the estuary. The mobilisation of the local inhabitants, various associations and many scientists, after many public enquiries and heated arguments, stopped

5461-405: The 2020 census, unless otherwise noted. Le Touquet has 4,226 permanent and 301 temporary residents, yielding a total of 4,527 inhabitants, but real population at any given moment may change significantly based on the number of holidaymakers in the town. The Cour des Comptes estimated in 2019 that the town regularly accepts about 250,000 visitors each year. According to the 2022 data compiled by

5588-573: The English Channel. This is why Le Touquet, while still relatively successful compared to other beach towns in the North, became more of a regional point of interest rather than a national or international attraction. The echo of pre-war tourism trends remained in Hotel Westminster (and, to a lesser extent, three- and four-star hotels), whose customers still were rich British people arriving by plane. In response to market pressures,

5715-614: The Germans ordered all enemy male population younger than 60 (essentially the British) to be interned . This included writer P. G. Wodehouse , who had been living in Le Touquet since 1934. Jules Pouget , long-time mayor of Le Touquet and later senator , was arrested in May 1942 by the Gestapo for being an 'enemy of the Germans'. Le Touquet again became a de facto military garrison. Already in June 1940, 40,000 Wehrmacht soldiers occupied

5842-776: The Golf Hotel and the Hôtel des Anglais were destroyed beyond repair, while the Royal Picardy, the Grand-Hôtel and Hotel Hermitage were badly damaged and would eventually cease to be hotels. All villas were commandeered by the Germans for the duration of occupation, who caused losses in many of them, and many others suffered under Allied bombardings. There are different estimates of the number of explosive devices that were left in Le Touquet, ranging from 92,745 through 106,745 and up to 137,950, but all agree that Le Touquet became

5969-405: The Sticks , starring comedian Dany Boon , deals with Ch'ti language and culture and the perceptions of the region by outsiders, and it was the highest-grossing French film of all time at the box office in France until it was surpassed by The Intouchables . Today Picard is primarily a spoken language, but in the medieval period, there is a wealth of literary texts in Picard. However, Picard

6096-596: The age of stone tools left by nomads near what is today Étaples . These human ancestors tended to live near the coast of the English Channel or in the valleys of the Authie and the Canche . Agriculture arrived in the area around 5th millennium BCE. By about 2000 BCE, the Canche was an established route for traders on the British Isles to go deeper into the continent, as confirmed by numerous archaeological findings in

6223-400: The average household size is 1.69, significantly below the department average of 2.3 people. As is typical for resorts in France, the majority of residences is secondary (not the primary place of living), but the phenomenon is particularly strong in this city. For a population of only 4,527 people, there are 12,582 residences in the resort, of which 4 in 5 are secondary residences. This is one of

6350-526: The bombings, as well as an unknown number of Organisation Todt labourers. There were no casualties among children because they had been evacuated from the city in February 1944 to a somewhat safer region of Mayenne . The bombardments caused the town dwellers to flee for their lives: while on 4 June, there were still 1,300 people left, the number dwindled to 350 on 9 June and just 5 on 13 June (3 gendarmes and two lighthouse keepers). German defenses thinned over

6477-852: The chalk to flow to the coast between Étaples and Le Touquet-Paris-Plage . Its principal tributaries are the Ternoise , the Planquette , the Créquoise , the Bras de Bronne , the Course, the Dordogne (not to be confused with the Dordogne ) and the Huitrepin which all join on its right bank, i.e. to the north of the Canche. The lie of the land means there is no notable tributary from the south until

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6604-425: The commune, the municipal administration of the town of Ypres moved to Le Touquet, while emptied hotels became Allied forces' military hospitals with a total capacity of 3,400 beds. Some of psychiatrists there were instrumental in early research into post-traumatic stress disorder , as evidenced by the fact that Charles Myers first used the term shell shock in scientific literature in 1915, when he published

6731-602: The commune, there were 950,000 night stays in the period from January to September of that year. Therefore, as pre-COVID estimates show, at the peak of the season in late summer, the population may boom to about 35,000 people. Permanent population is very old, as 59.5% is older than 60, including 23.7% who are 75 or over. This compares to just 27% of over-60s in the Pas-de-Calais department and 25.6% in Hauts-de-France. There are also great differences in sex: 56% of

6858-598: The dunes and the beaches between them, protects five distinct habitats under the Habitats Directive . A land-based site created in 2002 (also under the Habitats Directive) includes, among others, the dunes in the south-western part of the commune; some of those dunes were bought out in 1982 by the Conservatoire de littoral , a French government agency tasked with preserving coastal areas. On

6985-446: The estuary. A significant Frankish trading post ( emporium ) known as Quentovic appeared in the early Middle Ages. Initially, there was speculation that the port was located on the sea, near Étaples or Le Touquet (for example, Lévêque argued that it was located north of what is today the village of Saint-Josse ), but excavations in 1970s and 1980s near La Calotterie proved that hypothesis unlikely. The current location of Le Touquet

7112-468: The facilities which British soldiers saw in Le Touquet when recovering from wartime injuries encouraged them to return there once the war was over. Roaring Twenties were the time of highest prosperity for the settlement. Vigorous construction efforts continued and culminated in the construction of among the largest hotels in the settlement, Hotel Westminster (1924) and Hotel Royal Picardy (1929). The 500-room Royal Picardy was, as contemporary reviews had it,

7239-420: The few plants that set roots in the sand were unable to counter erosion due to storms, seawater flooding or sand being blewn off by wind. The exception was the stretch between Berck and Merlimont , which could sustain forests and so dunes existed there. Alphonse Daloz's planting of a forest near Cape Touquet had a large role in creating and stabilising dunes in Le Touquet, while also adding much recreation value to

7366-429: The first offer. That year, a Belgian buyer called Doms agreed to buy a total of 1,600 ha (4,000 acres) of land for 80,000 francs ( c. €252000 in 2022), but the sale was annulled because he failed to pay the promised sum. On the second try, the government found two new buyers, Alphonse Daloz  [ fr ] and a Mr. Alyon, who agreed to buy the same land for 150,000 francs ( c. €505000 in 2022). The deal

7493-562: The form of the neutral third person in ; however, the written form prioritizes os (as in French, where on is used for nous ). On the other hand, the spelling of conjugated verbs will depend on the pronunciation, which varies within the Picard domain. For instance southern Picard would read il étoait / étoét while northern Picard would read il étot . This is noted as variants in the following: The majority of Picard words derive from Vulgar Latin . Many words are very similar to French, but

7620-456: The future resort, in contrast to the warrens that were considered at best worthless and at worst a danger for nearby inhabitants. Le Touquet's dunes are in generally good condition. A 2001 study surveying a 3,015 m (3,297 yd)-long stretch of dunes found that on 62% of the length, the dunes were accumulating sediment beyond the margin of error; the areas where the balance was negative (8% of total study length) were located immediately near

7747-680: The geological perspective because, among the three 'Picardy-type' estuaries (that of the Canche, the Authie and the Somme), only the Canche's is not built-up and is allowed to develop on its own, which is why it is also monitored on this level. According to the Coastal Scenic Evaluation System, which assesses scenic quality, this area is among the highest-ranked in Northern France. The weather station of Le Touquet

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7874-458: The highest rates in all of France and the highest in the region of Hauts-de-France. Even though there are so many residences, the vacancy rate (1%) is negligible compared to about 8% in the department, region or metropolitan France . A median person in Le Touquet is notably richer than in the surrounding areas: annual disposable income reaches €30,130 per unit of consumption in Le Touquet, compared to just over €20,000 in Pas-de-Calais department and

8001-588: The integrity of the dunes, such as large tourist traffic and the annual enduro race. Several authorities monitor the environment around Le Touquet. In 2005, the European Commission designated the estuary of the Canche river as a Natura 2000 site under the Birds Directive . Since 2008, a wider site that covers the Canche, the Authie and the Somme estuaries, as well as the coastal waters,

8128-425: The land on the cape, planted a forest and built a small palace there, and in 1882 founded the seaside resort as Paris-Plage . Ten years later, John Whitley , an English businessman, saw a lucrative opportunity to build a resort for (mostly) English and French elites. His first endeavour, 'Mayville', failed as the company behind it announced bankruptcy, but on the second try, Whitley bought the coveted land and launched

8255-494: The last quarter of the 20th century the authorities became aware of the importance of the marshes and started trying to preserve them, having earlier contributed to their disappearance. The Canche and its valley have been incorporated into a national natural reserve since 1987. The Canche estuary was the first site in northern France where a conservation victory, in respect of the coast, was first achieved, in 1976. Plans had been made to put in place an earlier project, dating from

8382-587: The late 80s and early 90s with the construction of the Channel Tunnel . The French motorway network ( A16 autoroute ) reached the settlement in 1994, which gave easy access to the beaches for Parisians. As for the English, they were increasingly going to France for shopping as exchange rates were favourable, but their share of ownership of houses remained low. The commune increasingly became populated by retirees, which, as of 2014, constitute more than half of

8509-467: The market pavilion in the town centre (1932) and an international airport that since its opening in 1936 has mostly served British customers. World War II started on 1 September 1939 with the invasion of Poland , and Le Touquet again became a sanitary zone for the military. The city remained under French control for a very short time, as Germany launched an invasion of France on 10 May 1940. The Royal Air Force squadron stationed in Le Touquet airport

8636-542: The meaning of the word 'Touquet'. The more prevalent explanation goes that the name derives from the Old French touquet , meaning 'bend' or 'corner'. Édouard Lévêque  [ fr ] writes that in the Middle Ages , if a house was located around the corner, people would say it was located al touquet del rue , or, in modern French, au tournant de la rue . This logic was applied to this area because what

8763-415: The meantime, a vocational school for hotel-related occupations ( lycée hotelier ) was opened on the site of the Royal Picardy, whose reconstruction was deemed not feasible. This 1972 building was built to resemble a pine cone . 1970s also saw Le Touquet buy numerous properties, including the horse racecourse, the tennis courts, the casino and the concert hall. A new push for the city's development came in

8890-715: The modern French form of chasser . Because of the proximity of Paris to the northernmost regions of France, French (that is, the languages that were spoken in and around Paris) greatly influenced Picard and vice versa. The closeness between Picard and French causes the former to not always be recognised as a language in its own right, but rather a "distortion of French" as it is often viewed. Despite being geographically and syntactically affiliated according to some linguists due to their inter-comprehensible morphosyntactic features, Picard in Picardy, Ch'timi and Rouchi still intrinsically maintain conspicuous discrepancies. Picard includes

9017-504: The more important ones are related to waste and water management, urban development and public transport. Before that, Le Touquet was the headquarters of a looser Communauté de communes mer et terres d'Opale  [ fr ] , but a local government reform in 2015 forced the intercommunalities in Montreuil (which failed the minimum population threshold introduced by that reform), Le Touquet and Berck to be one bigger unit, by order of

9144-494: The more populated region of Nord-Pas-de-Calais it is called Ch'ti or Ch'timi (sometimes written as Chti or Chtimi ). This is the area that makes up Romance Flanders , around the metropolis of Lille and Douai , and northeast Artois around Béthune and Lens . Picard is also named Rouchi around Valenciennes , Roubaignot around Roubaix , or simply patois in general French. In 1998, Picard native speakers amounted to 700,000 individuals,

9271-460: The most mined city in France. The first post-war years were dedicated to reconstruction and mine clearing . By Pentecost of 1945, Le Touquet's beach opened to visitors, the first in Northern France, but the demining proved taxing. 78 people died and 155 were injured while demining the town within 3 years of Liberation . Many pre-war luxury buildings were destroyed. Out of the seven hors-classe hotels (see pictures above), Hotel Westminster remains

9398-592: The most notable traits, the evolution in Picard towards palatalization is less marked than in the central langues d'oïl in which it is particularly striking; /k/ or /ɡ/ before /j/ , tonic /i/ and /e/ , as well as in front of tonic /a/ and /ɔ/ (from earlier *au ; the open /o/ of the French p o rte ) in central Old French but not in Picard: The effects of palatalization can be summarised as this: There are striking differences, such as Picard cachier ('to hunt') ~ Old French chacier , which later took

9525-523: The national level, the Pointe du Touquet, at the northern extremity of the commune, is protected as a conservation area ( site classé ) for its dunes and the Banc du Pilori , as established by a ministerial order in 2001. Two years earlier, the Commission supérieure des sites, perspectives et paysages  [ fr ] , a central government body tasked with designating protected sites, advisedto create

9652-408: The neighbouring Rue de Paris, the primary business street in pre-war Le Touquet, was also extremely hazardous due to its concentration of explosive devices. Civilian life was heavily restricted: the military banned fishing in the area, access to the beach was prohibited and food rationing was introduced. The Allies also had some military plans for the area. In 1943, they launched Operation Starkey ,

9779-404: The new settlement, but the commune of Cucq would gradually become more active in its life, holding the first hearing about Paris-Plage in 1886. Five years later, a garde champêtre was dispatched to Paris-Plage, thus sidelining the founders' family. On the infrastructure front, a macadam road to the settlement was unveiled in 1888, and a narrow-gauge tram line from Étaples  [ fr ]

9906-632: The northernmost of France and parts of Hainaut province in Belgium. Administratively, this area is divided between the French Hauts-de-France region and the Belgian Wallonia along the border between both countries due to its traditional core being the districts of Tournai and Mons ( Walloon Picardy ). The language or dialect is referred to by different names, as residents of Picardy call it simply Picard , but in

10033-676: The object of scholarly research at universities in Lille and Amiens , as well as at Indiana University . Since people are now able to move around France more easily than in past centuries, the different varieties of Picard are converging and becoming more similar. In its daily use, Picard is tending to lose its distinctive features and may be confused with regional French. At the same time, even though most Northerners can understand Picard today, fewer and fewer are able to speak it, and people who speak Picard as their first language are increasingly rare, particularly under 50. The 2008 film Welcome to

10160-434: The only pre-war luxury hotel still in existence (re-opened in 1946). The original two lighthouses were blown up, so the commune ordered to create a replica  [ fr ] , unveiled in 1951. Post-war Le Touquet experienced a dramatic shift in tourism. Whereas pre-war Le Touquet was an upper-class resort with overwhelming British presence, by 1965, a survey found that the English were just 11% of all visitors and none of

10287-466: The owner of the lands backed out at the last minute as he refused to certify the cession at a notary's office. Daloz decided to develop the area himself. In 1880, Daloz contacted Raymond Lens, a local surveyor, who then made the initial design for the first subdivision. Construction was finished on 22 March 1882 and the first lots were inaugurated on 9 April. Interest in the area appeared very quickly. Already in 1884, an entrepreneur from Boulogne launched

10414-520: The owners - most of the visitors (59%) were from Pas-de-Calais or Nord departments and a quarter came from Greater Paris region. This was because after the war, the English sold most of their houses, including many who lost the upper-class status after the war; Parisians, who constituted much of the remainder of pre-war owners, also gave up on the properties in Le Touquet. These houses found eager buyers in locals, mainly relatively well-off lawyers, doctors and company directors from small towns and cities in

10541-464: The palace with its surroundings and about 1,120 ha (2,800 acres) of as-yet unsold land, but there was no one to buy it. They then lowered the price to 1.3 million francs ( c. €5810000 in 2022) and then 900 thousand francs ( c. €4065000 in 2022), to no avail. But after they offered their estate for 600 thousand francs, a bidding war started that Whitley won, offering 870,500 francs ( c. €3932000 in 2022) at an auction on 16 December 1902. Whitley

10668-406: The peat marshes by drainage work and the planting of more trees. The reduction of marshland again allowed for even more areas of cultivation to feed the increasing population. During the 19th century, technical progress (for example, the replacement of windmills by steam engines ) led to further improvements in drainage, contributing to the drying-up of the valley downstream as far as Hesdin . In

10795-487: The plans and left the estuary to nature. With sandbars and spits , the estuary of the Canche is typical of the estuaries of this region of France. The coastal dunes, marshes and valley are home to 485 different plants and a diverse range of wildlife. Seventy-five varieties of resident and migratory birds nest in and around the estuary and valley, such as the nightjar , woodlark , several types of warblers , common snipe , oystercatchers (using rabbit-holes as homes) and

10922-402: The population is female, which may be attributable to longer life expectancy of women . Because retirees constitute a very large part of the total population, the commune has issues with natural population change . It became negative in the 1980s and, with the birth rate falling, the rate of natural increase fell even more. Between 2014 and 2020, its average rate was -1.5% per annum. The decrease

11049-417: The population of Le Touquet. Le Touquet is squeezed between the left (south-western) bank of the estuary of the Canche river and the English Channel coast, in the western part of the Pas-de-Calais department in the north of France. It is in a coastal region that is frequently referred to as the ' Côte d'Opale ' (Opal Coast), a name that evokes the iridescent reflections of the setting sun on the sea. Le Touquet

11176-545: The recreation there. The bridge over the Canche had a British military police (' Red Caps ') checkpoint to turn away those of low military rank, but many soldiers smuggled their way to Le Touquet on low tide and clandestinely used its facilities. When in September 1917, a New Zealander enlisted soldier was caught crossing the Canche from Le Touquet and threatened to be harshly punished, more than 1,000 soldiers stationed at Étaples, most from ANZAC , mutinied . In an indirect way,

11303-529: The region of Hauts-de-France and €22,800 in metropolitan France. Poverty rates are also significantly lower: 10% in Le Touquet compared to 17-18% in the wider region. However, according to the Cour des Comptes assessment, in 2014 the median annual household income as a whole (€23,967) did not stand out compared to surrounding areas. As in other communes of France, citizens of the European Union who are on

11430-529: The region. Le Touquet was on low tourism development priority for the central government, which focused its efforts on the much warmer and sunnier resorts of the French Riviera instead. As that region already had had a notable presence of elites and was becoming more accessible with better transport, the high society increasingly chose spend their vacations on the Mediterranean coast rather than

11557-565: The regional languages of France ; by placing them on the list [of French regional languages], they will be known from then on as langues d'oïl . Even if it has no official status as a language in France, Picard, along with all the other languages spoken in France, benefits from actions led by the Culture Minister's General Delegation for the French language and the languages of France ( la Délégation générale à la langue française et aux langues de France ). Picard, like French,

11684-498: The relatively small pre-war villas (most of which were rebuilt) were replaced by high-rise apartment buildings on the sea shore. In 1961, the first large scale residence, consisting of nine storeys and 20 apartments, was built; several more then followed. A 2004 report was very critical of such development, saying that this caused the sea-front to become 'denatured' and look like a 'giant parking'. In total, by 2020, only 16% of residences that exist today were built before 1945. Meanwhile,

11811-448: The resort in 1944. After World War II, the upper class mostly fled to the French Riviera , and property was bought up by well-off locals. A number of unique villas still evoke the seaside architecture of the interwar period , even if most of it was lost due to destruction during World War II. 21 buildings in the commune are protected as historical monuments. Le Touquet also has extensive natural heritage protection because of its dunes and

11938-404: The resort were British, most of them upper-class. The Great Depression dealt a blow to Le Touquet's fortunes. Rapid population growth that defined the booming settlement since the 1902 Whitley and Stoneham deal ground to a halt. Interest into real estate dwindled, new projects and expansions were abandoned, and casino revenues never returned to pre-crisis levels. Despite this slowdown, Le Touquet

12065-463: The sea by a 2.5 m (8.2 ft)-high reinforced concrete wall stretching from the Canche estuary and up to Atlantic Hotel at the southern end of the settlement; the ground floors and first floors of all buildings were walled up, and certain buildings, such as the bar near the swimming pool, were demolished. By 1944, the beach was littered with Czech hedgehogs , Rommel's asparagus rigged with explosives, Belgian gates and thousands of landmines ;

12192-571: The south of the settlement. Charles Garnier , the architect behind the Paris Opera and the Monte Carlo Casino , offered to build luxury hotels and a wide range of sports facilities. Another advantage would be its location halfway between London and Paris, as stressed in advertisements, but Mayville never materialised. The locals opposed the construction as they felt that the new development would marginalise Paris-Plage and would build

12319-526: The southeast, and the department's seat is in Arras , 100 km (62 mi) away. Courts with jurisdiction in the commune are scattered around the region: general courts ( tribunal judiciaire ) as well as commercial , labour courts and courts for minors are located in Boulogne-sur-Mer; Montreuil-sur-Mer has the justice of the peace court ( tribunal de proximité ) and the agricultural land court ;

12446-543: The southwestern bank, where it is located (in contrast to the opposite bank, which has been retreating). The main vector of land accumulation today is the Banc du Pilori, a shoal to the north of Pointe du Touquet. That accumulation may sometimes cause problems because it makes the estuary shallow and forces the river to meander, with the potential to jeopardise commercial activity of the port of Étaples and Le Touquet's marina if unregulated. The Atlantic coast beach, stretching for more than 12 km (7.5 mi) north to south,

12573-472: The station. This is further proven by the position of German blockhouses built as part of the Atlantic Wall during World War II. When built, they were at the top of the dunes but they have since grown by several metres, obstructing the view of the sea for inland structures and leaving them below the most desirable point (at the dune's peak) for seaside military buildings. Several factors cause concern for

12700-537: The summer as Allied forces advanced in northern France, until the Wehrmacht finally abandoned the city on 4 September, but not before blowing up the two lighthouses from 1852 and the bridge over the Canche at Étaples. The Canadian army liberated Le Touquet the same day. The consequences for the resort were dramatic. The Germans demolished the Atlantic Hotel in 1943 for construction materials. During bombings,

12827-682: The town in anticipation of Operation Sea Lion , but the invasion of Great Britain never occurred. Still, the German armed forces set up their local headquarters in the town, as did the National Socialist Motor Corps and the Organisation Todt . Many Belgian, Dutch and Danish workers were housed in Le Touquet to build the Atlantic Wall . As a result of works on this fortification, the town was sealed off from

12954-423: The town, under the new leadership of Léonce Deprez , also saw a new strategy for the resort that was supposed to make Le Touquet an 'all-year round resort'. In 1974, Le Touquet opened a closed-air thalassotherapy institute. An enduro motorcycle race, today known as Enduropale  [ fr ] , was first held in February 1975 with 286 participants. A flea market of antique items was launched for autumn. In

13081-683: The train station too far away. They also were afraid of the fact foreign capital was behind it. Then in 1898, Anglo-French relations soured due to the Fashoda Incident , so the concept of amicable meetings between the countries' aristocrats seemed to have lost relevance. Thus the Compagnie de Mayville Limited, which was to run the resort, announced bankruptcy. The Daloz announced their intent to sell their manor in August 1900 for 2.6 million francs ( c. €11151000 in 2022), which would include

13208-421: The treacherous shoals near Cape Le Touquet. Villemessant gathered a few of his friends and offered to buy the parcel from Daloz for a very high sum, but Villemessant's illness and subsequent death meant the idea never came to fruition. Daloz then approached a former notary , a Mr. Billiet, to buy 3 ha (7.4 acres) of land for 35,000 francs per hectare ( c. €124000 in 2022) for development purposes, but then

13335-462: The unique nature of the Canche estuary. This, together with its initial inception as an upper-class resort, which it still is to some extent, contributes to consistently high positions in quality-of-life rankings. Today, most of its permanent population is retired. President Emmanuel Macron 's spouse, Brigitte , inherited a villa in the town; therefore, the presidential couple often spends time in Le Touquet and votes there. There are two theories as to

13462-487: The vast majority of whom were elderly people (aged 65 and over). Since its daily use had drastically declined, Picard was declared by the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) a "severely endangered language ". However, as of 2023, the Picard language was listed as “vulnerable” by UNESCO. The word ch'ti , chtimi or ch'timi to designate the Picard language

13589-407: The vicinity include Boulogne-sur-Mer (38 km (24 mi) to the north) and Calais (70 km (43 mi) in the same direction). Among larger cities, Lille is 140 km (87 mi) to the east and Paris, in part the commune's namesake, is 240 km (150 mi) to the south. Le Touquet has benefited from favourable dune creation conditions and accretion of sediments from the Canche to

13716-421: The village communities occupying the valley and its surrounds have been (and still are) farming, fishing and reed harvesting. The extraction of peat from the marshes of the lower river was known in the 16th century; peat being the principal means of heating and also a multi-purpose fertilizer. The alder tree, which grew well in the local marshy soils, contributed to bind the ground, and produced timber. It

13843-451: The word ultimately derives from a pre-Latin form meaning 'grove' or 'wood reserve'. First mentions of the word Touquet in the area appear in the 18th century. A map by César-François Cassini de Thury recognises the area as Pointe du Touquet , 'Cape Le Touquet'. A 1764 map by Jacques-Nicholas Bellin indicated that the name for the shoals of the river Canche was Banc du Touquet , 'Le Touquet sandbank'. Ten years later,

13970-585: The written form known as Feller-Carton (based on the Walloon spelling system, which was developed by Jules Feller , and adapted for Picard by Professor Fernand Carton ). Picard, although primarily a spoken language, has a body of written literature: poetry, songs (" P'tit quinquin " for example), comic books, etc. A number of dictionaries and patois guides also exist (for French speakers): Canche The river rises at Gouy-en-Ternois and passes Frévent , Hesdin , and Montreuil-sur-Mer before leaving

14097-440: Was a relatively small municipality, it was so rich that it covered all the expenses of building the new grandiose neo-Renaissance city hall (also opened in 1931) from one-year revenue from gambling taxes alone. This was possible thanks to the fact that in 1927 and 1928, Le Touquet had the biggest casino in France by revenue (45 and 58 million francs, or c. €31 and €40 million in 2022 values, respectively). Up to 90% of clients of

14224-419: Was abandoned, as were the plans for oversized villas scattered in the forest. In 1905, Le Touquet launched its own water distributiion service from a (still active) underground source located about 1.5 km (0.93 mi) north of Étaples, but plans to launch a mineral spa facility had to be postponed because of World War I and were then abandoned. That said, the luxury resort was still developing rapidly. For

14351-463: Was built in 1900. Administratively, a local landlords' committee and a road commission were set up in 1889 and 1894 to manage the affairs of the settlement and fill the gaps where state administration did not reach yet. The village expanded quite quickly: in 1894, it had 163 buildings; by the end of 1902, there were 355. This included, among others, three hotels, seven restaurants and cafés, two pharmacies, two bakeries producing local bread, three butchers,

14478-543: Was destroyed, and by 15 May, residents of the resort started to flee. Six days later, two German officers entered the mayoral office and took over the government. There was little intrinsic military value for the seaside resort, but Nazi soldiers quickly introduced military occupation conditions anyway: curfew started at 21:00, all expatriate males had to report daily to the town hall, and Germans commandeered whatever real estate and vehicles they considered fit, without much possibility for legitimate owners' resistance. On 21 July,

14605-403: Was finalised on 25 April 1837. At the beginning, Daloz and Alyon decided to convert the land for livestock farming. They briefly raised some cattle and sheep, but the enterprise didn't break even, so just after a year, Mr. Alyon sold most of his land to Daloz and two other people, Mr. Marion and Mr. de Naurois. These two new co-owners went on to grow rye , sunroot and potato crops and created

14732-419: Was held on the Canche estuary. This is not to mention other sports such as cricket , archery and greyhound racing . For all the grand plans that Stoneham and Whitley envisaged, their ambitions were somewhat pared down by the involvement of French landscape architect Henry Martinet  [ fr ] . He decreased the size of the resort so that it would bring more profit; the great railway station project

14859-608: Was invented during the First World War by Poilus from non-Picard speaking areas to refer to their brothers in arms from Picardy and Nord-Pas-de-Calais . It is an onomatopoeia created based on the frequent use of the /ʃ/ ( ch- ) phoneme and of the /ʃti/ ( chti ) sound in Picard: " ch'ti " means the one, as in the sentence " ch'est chti qui a fait cha" ( he is the one who has done that), for instance. Belgium's French Community gave full official recognition to Picard as

14986-458: Was not able to compete with French and was slowly reduced to the status of a regional language. A more recent body of Picard literature, written during the last two centuries, also exists. Modern written Picard is generally a transcription of the spoken language. For that reason, words are often spelled in a variety of different ways (in the same way that English and French were before they were standardized). One system of spelling for Picard words

15113-474: Was offset somewhat by a positive migration balance (+0.9% per annum) in this period, but between 1990 and 2014, the commune also experienced a mild net population outflow. Le Touquet's household composition, just like its population pyramid , is also an outlier. Almost half of permanent residents live alone, and only 16.6% of households have any children (compared to 31.2% of one-person households in Pas-de-Calais and 40.5% households with children). This means that

15240-530: Was opened in 1947. According to the 1991-2020 climate normal , the town has a temperate oceanic climate ( Köppen classification : Cfb ). In comparison to France as a whole, Le Touquet features a relatively cold, rainy and cloudy climate, but average temperatures are warmer than in cities in the middle of the continents at the same latitude, such as Kyiv , Astana or Calgary . Winters are generally mild, humid and cloudy, and summers are warm, though by French standards they are rather cool. Average precipitation amount

15367-406: Was opened, and it held its first international competition in 1905. Still in 1904, Prime Minister Arthur Balfour inaugurated the first golf course; the first automobile race to Le Touquet - cars were still a relatively new invention in those days - was also held that year with 28 participants. By 1911, Paris-Plage saw the first land sailors roam its beaches, and a year later, a motorboat race

15494-488: Was realized that forestry also helped in drainage . Further developments in the 18th century saw permanent enclosures with animals being fenced-in and property boundaries being created by the planting of hedges and the digging of ditches, contributing to organized and cooperative farming methods. The 18th century also saw the emergence of new perceptions of marshland, long considered as unhealthy places in which to live. Administrative authorities encouraged action to recover

15621-449: Was short on funds and the cheque he gave to the notary would have bounced . But this being Saturday, Whitley had two days to find the money, which he did with the investment of Allen Stoneham . The cheque was honoured and thus Whitley got the land, which he transferred to Syndicate of Touquet Ltd., a dominant force in the village's development in the following decades. The two English investors quickly proceeded to implement their plans for

15748-539: Was still doing relatively well as the tourists in Le Touquet were those who weren't particularly affected by the Great Depression and were among contemporary A-list celebrities, such as Noël Coward , the Prince of Wales (future Edward VIII ) and Indian maharajas . Ian Fleming , a British writer, was a frequent guest in pre-war Le Touquet. Jeremy Black and Oliver Buckton thus suggest that Royale-les-Eaux ,

15875-437: Was submerged under the English Channel, but sediments accumulated over centuries and pushed the coast to the west. From 1168, the abbey of Saint-Josse  [ fr ] owned the territories near Trépied and up to the sea, which was confirmed by documents from 1203 and 1624. Trépied was a fishing hamlet as well as a ferry station to cross the Canche. Letters patent issued from the French king offered to plant beachgrass on

16002-490: Was the idea for a resort for the British a novelty, because Boulogne had already been a well-established UK contact point for more than 50 years. However, Whitley's idea was to combine the two concepts in one place. The Daloz were receptive to Whitley's buyout offer, but the price for the remaining 1,200 ha (3,000 acres) lot was too high for the English investor, so he decided to buy a smaller patch of land (3 km (1.9 mi) long and 500 m (1,600 ft) wide) to

16129-526: Was unveiled in 1909, and an internal line servicing the golf club's customers opened the following year. In recognition of the fast development of the resort, a 1912 law formed the commune of Le Touquet-Paris-lage from a part of the commune of Cucq. The breakout of World War I in July 1914 changed Le Touquet from a seaside resort to a garrison. 6,000 Belgian refugees fleeing the Western Front settled in

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