A history of Nanterre

Research about the town of Nanterre

By Robert, Abdelkader & Marjolain

Hello everybody! To start with, the city of Nanterre is located in the suburbs of Paris.

Our city consists essentially in 10 neighborhoods; the name of my neighborhood is Pablo Picasso. There isn't too much urban segregation because the city has tried to mix the neighborhoods in terms of incomes, and there are a lot projects scattered all across town.

Our City Hall was built in a particular style because it looks very much like a boat.

The city of Nanterre is very important in the Parisian region, because there are lots of inhabitants: there are 89,966 people in Nanterre, 2.2 million people in Paris, 11.73 million people in the Ile de France region, and 65.3 million people in France.

Moreover, Nanterre is a town, but it is also where the first business center of Europe stands; it is called La Défense (though La Défense covers three different towns), and it is also where the department administrative center is. Our department is Les Hauts de Seine and the zip code is 92. There are 101 departments in France, Paris is both a city and a department, and its zip code is 75. Nanterre is also the place where our department Justice Court and General Council are, so it is an important administrative town.

Let me tell you a little bit more about La Défense business center.

It's really wide and the tourists really like it because they also go to the mall there and there is a nice view on the Champs Elysées: indeed, when you stand on the promenade of La Défense, you can see the Arch of the Human Rights (or Arch of La Défense) and it stands in the same line as the Arch of Triumph on the Champs-Elysées.

Personally, I love my city because it is a multicultural city with lots of equalities.

The main urban choices about my town were to build the department prefecture, La Défense center, and to build a lot of social housing after World War II to replace the slums where lots of immigrants (mainly from Algeria) used to live. There were 14,000 people living in the slums, and now the University of Nanterre Paris-Ouest stands in the place of the shacks.

The slums used to be very dirty as you can imagine, until President Charles de Gaulle decided to have them destroyed in 1964 and it was decided that the inhabitants would be relocated in temporary transit constructions that were very huge. These constructions were supposed to be temporary but it took several years before people could live in decent social housing.

And finally the slums disappeared in the 1970s.

To finish, it is because of the war and the slums that our city became a multicultural city because after the war, the country was in need of man power at low prices and that’s why France brought many migrants from its colonies.

I forgot to say that stars like Tom Cruise, the Pussy Cat Dolls have attended a music party to inaugurate the cinema complex of La Défense business center.

By Robert, Abdelkader & Marjolain