Corrèze

For other uses, see Corrèze (disambiguation).

Corrèze (French pronunciation: ​[kɔ.ʁɛz]; Occitan: Corresa) is a department in south-western France, named after the Corrèze River.

The inhabitants of the department are called Corréziens.

History

Corrèze is one of the original 83 departments created during the French Revolution on 4 March 1790. It includes part of the former province of Limousin (the Bas-Limousin).

The 1851 census recorded a population of 320,866: this remained relatively constant for the rest of the nineteenth century. During the twentieth century, however, Corrèze shared the experience of many of the country's rural departments as the population fell steadily.

Within Corrèze the nineteenth-century railway planners, influenced in part by the department's topography, endowed Brive-la-Gaillarde with good connections and a major junction from which railway lines fanned out in six different directions. The railways arrived in 1860, at an opportune moment, directly after phylloxera had destroyed the local wine industry. The new railways enabled the farms in the area surrounding Brive to specialise in fruits and vegetables which they could now transport rapidly to the larger population centres of central and southern France. Locally, the new agriculture triggered the development, in the Brive basin, of related businesses and industries such as the manufacture of jams and liquors, as well as timber/paper-based packaging businesses.

Geography

The department is part of the region of Aquitaine-Limousin-Poitou-Charentes. It is surrounded by the department of Creuse, Haute-Vienne, Cantal, Puy-de-Dôme, Lot, and Dordogne. Tulle is the prefecture of Corrèze and Brive-la-Gaillarde the largest city.

Politics

The President of the General Council was François Hollande of the Socialist Party until 2012 when he was elected President of the Republic. Jacques Chirac also served as a Deputy of the National Assembly here for many years.

Party		seats
	Union for a Popular Movement	18
•	Socialist Party	16
•	French Communist Party	2
•	Miscellaneous Left	1

Tourism

• 

  Tulle

• 

  Uzerche

• 

  Argentat

• 

  Beaulieu-sur-Dordogne

• 

  Collonges-la-Rouge

People

People who were born or have significantly lived in Corrèze include:

• The House of Noailles, dukes of Noailles and Ayen, which provided three marshals of France, one admiral of France and one archbishop of Paris
• The House of La Tour d'Auvergne, viscounts of Turenne
• Bernard de Ventadour (1135–1195), a famous troubadour born at the castle of Ventadour
• Pope Clement VI (1291–1352), 198th pope, born Pierre Roger in Rosiers-d'Egletons
• Pope Innocent VI (1295–1362), 199th pope, born Etienne Aubert in Beyssac
• Pope Gregory XI (1329–1378), 201st pope and last French pope, born Pierre Roger de Beaufort in Rosiers-d'Egletons
• Etienne Baluze (1630–1718), scholar and personal librarian of Colbert
• Guillaume Dubois (1656–1723), cardinal and statesman, Prime Minister of France during the Régence
• Jean-Baptiste Treilhard (1742–1810), political figure of the French Revolution, member of Committee of Public Safety, president of the Convention that judged and sentenced to death King Louis XVI, member of the Directory and one of the redactors of the Napoleonic codes; he is buried in the Panthéon
• Pierre-André Latreille (1762–1833), zoologist and entomologist
• Guillaume Marie Anne Brune (1763–1815), marshal of France, marshal of the Empire and godfather of author Alexandre Dumas
• Edmond Perrier (1844-1921): anatomist and zoologist
• Robert Nivelle (1856–1924), general, commander-in-chief of the French armies on the Western Front in 1917
• Léon Eyrolles (1861-1945) : entrepreneur and politician
• Eugène Freyssinet (1879–1962), structural and civil engineer, major pioneer of prestressed concrete
• In 1879 Adolphe Clément-Bayard built an iron smelter in Tulle to supply his Parisian cycle manufacturing business, but he did not have sufficient finance to make it viable.
• Marius Vazeilles (1881-1973): politician and archeologist
• Henri Queuille (1884–1970), mayor of Neuvic (1912–1965), deputy for Corrèze (1914–1935 and 1946–1958), senator for Corrèze (1935–1941) who refused to vote full powers to Pétain in 1940, three times Prime Minister of France during the Fourth Republic
• Edmond Michelet (1899–1970), politician and statesman, who did the first act of resistance of World War II in France by distributing tracts calling to continue the war in all Brive-la-Gaillarde's mailboxes on 17 June 1940, one day before Charles de Gaulle's Appeal of 18 June
• André Malraux (1901–1976), writer, adventurer and statesman, member of the French Resistance in Corrèze during the Second World War
• Antoinette Feuerwerker (1912-2003), lawyer and resistance member
• David Feuerwerker (1912-1980), Rabbi and resistance member
• Marie-Thérèse Nguyễn Hữu Thị Lan (1914-1963), the last empress consort of the Nguyen dynasty in Vietnam
• Jean Cazeneuve (1915-2005), philosopher and sociologist, president of the ORTF and of TF1
• Rose Warfman (1916- ), resistance member
• Eric Rohmer (1920–2010), film director
• Marcel Conche (1922– ), philosopher
• Pierre Neuville (1922– ), author of "Les combats de ma vie" SDE (2013).
• Jacques Delors (1925– ), economist and politician, 8th President of the European Commission (1985–1994), father of socialist leader Martine Aubry
• René Teulade: (1931-2014) member of the Senate
• Jacques Chirac (1932– ), deputy to the Assemblée Nationale for Corrèze (1967–1995), President of the departement's General Council (1970–1979), Prime Minister of France (1974–1976 and 1986–1988), Mayor of Paris (1977–1995) and 22nd President of the French Republic (1995–2007)
• Bernadette Chirac (1933– ), member of the departement's General Council and aide to the mayor of Sarran
• Pierre Villepreux (1943- ) rugby player
• Denis Tillinac (1947- ) author and journalist
• François Hollande (1954– ), deputy for Corrèze (1988–1993 and 1997–2012), mayor of Tulle (2001–2008), President of the department's General Council (2008–2012), leader of the Socialist Party (1997–2008), 24th and current President of the French Republic (2012– )
• Marie-Anne Montchamp (1957– ), politician, former Secretary of State for Solidarities and Social Cohesion (2010–2012)
• Valérie Pécresse (1967– ), politician, former Minister of Higher Education and Research (2007–2011), former Minister of the Budget and Government's Spokeswoman (2011–2012)
• Cédric Villani (1973– ), mathematician, Fields Medalist in 2010
• Cédric Heymans (1978– ), French international rugby union player
• Dimitri Yachvili (1980– ), French international rugby union player
• Laurent Koscielny (1985– ) footballer who plays for Arsenal in the Premier League
• Thomas Domingo (1985– ), French international rugby union player

See also

• Cantons of the Corrèze department
• Communes of the Corrèze department
• Arrondissements of the Corrèze department

External links

• (French) Prefecture website
• (French) General Council website
• lacorreze.com a lot of photos