Bruay-la-Buissière

Bruay-la-Buissière
Bruay-la-Buissière

Coordinates: 50°28′55″N 2°32′55″E / 50.4819°N 2.5486°E / 50.4819; 2.5486Coordinates: 50°28′55″N 2°32′55″E / 50.4819°N 2.5486°E / 50.4819; 2.5486
Country France
Region Nord-Pas-de-Calais-Picardie
Department Pas-de-Calais
Arrondissement Béthune
Canton Bruay-la-Buissière
Intercommunality Artois
Government
  Mayor (20082014) Alain Wacheux
Area1 16.35 km2 (6.31 sq mi)
Population (2009)2 23,621
  Density 1,400/km2 (3,700/sq mi)
INSEE/Postal code 62178 / 62700
Elevation 30–106 m (98–348 ft)
(avg. 98 m or 322 ft)

1 French Land Register data, which excludes lakes, ponds, glaciers > 1 km² (0.386 sq mi or 247 acres) and river estuaries.

2 Population without double counting: residents of multiple communes (e.g., students and military personnel) only counted once.

Bruay-la-Buissière is a commune in the Pas-de-Calais department in the Nord-Pas-de-Calais region in northern France.

Geography

Slag heap
Miners’ houses


A former coalmining town some 6 miles (9.7 km) southwest of Béthune and 30 miles (48.3 km) southwest of Lille, at the junction of the D57 and the N47 roads.

History

With four coal mines, it was the headquarters of the mining company. The coal mines closed during the 1960s, to be replaced by light industrial work and chemical factories. In April 1972 the murder of miner's daughter Brigitte Dewevre became a politicized event when Pierre Leroy, a local middle-class lawyer associated with the local mining company, was arrested: La Cause du Peuple, the paper of the Maoist Gauche prolétarienne, publicized the case with the headline 'Bruay: And Now They Are Massacring Our Children!'[1]

The two places of Bruay-en-Artois and La Buissiere were joined as one commune in 1987.

A pit head of the Compagnie des mines de Bruay

Population

Historical population
YearPop.±%
196230,982    
196832,341+4.4%
197529,435−9.0%
198226,649−9.5%
199024,927−6.5%
199923,998−3.7%
200923,621−1.6%

Sights

See also

References

  1. La Cause de Peuple, 1 May 1972. Cited in 'Showdown at Bruay-en-Artois', ch. 1 of Richard Wolin, The Wind from the East: French Intellectuals, the Cultural Revolution, and the Legacy of the 1960s, Princeton University Press, 2010.

External links

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