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Andamooka, South Australia

Andamooka is a town approximately 600 km north of Adelaide in the Far North of South Australia on the lands of the Kokatha people. Andamooka is the largest town administered by the Outback Communities Authority instead of a local government area. It is in the state electoral district of Giles and the federal Division of Grey.

Establishment of pastoral activity
Andamooka lies on Kokatha traditional land. The name is derived from a salt lake, named from the Aboriginal "Andemorka", by which the locality was known to Europeans as early as 1866, well before opal was discovered. The meaning is uncertain. At that time (1866) it was also known as 'Swinden's Country', after Charles Swinden of Riverton, the leader of the small horseback party which discovered it in 1857. They described it as a tract of 'generally sterile country, but having some patches of good pastoral land'. It was those meagre prospects which attracted pastoralists, resulting in the foundation of Andamooka Station, which for the next half century was the only industry. Since the granting of Native Title and pastoral leases in 2014, the Indigenous-owned Kokotha Pastoral Company now operates Andamooka Station, together with the adjacent Purple Downs and Roxby Downs Stations.

Discovery of opal
Opal was discovered there in 1930, and the town developed out of the scattered miners' camps which established in the area. An Andamooka Opal Fields Post Office was not opened until 13 January 1947, and was renamed Andamooka in 1990. The road into Andamooka was sealed in the 1990s, some remaining roads in the town are still unsealed.

Heritage listed buildings
A number of historic buildings in the town are heritage-listed: the Andamooka Historic Precinct (containing Frank Albertoni's House, Bob Cutzow's Dugout, Tom Brady's Dugout, Mrs Perry's Kitchen and Andy Absalom's House) and Dick Clark's Residence are both listed on the South Australian Heritage Register.

Opal Mining
There are numerous opal fields in Andamooka district, one of the principal outliers being White Dam. The original pick and shovel shaft miners, many of whom were the bush characters and social outcasts who gave the settlement a 'Wild West' reputation, were gradually displaced from the 1960s and 70s by the arrival of miners using bulldozers which made deep cuts to reach the respective opal levels, from where horizontal drives could easily be made to fully exploit the level. The several opal levels at Andamooka are not as deep as other fields such as Coober Pedy and Lightning Ridge. However, while the opal may be easier to reach, it is generally scarcer and poorer in quality. Those factors always made this gem field attractive to smaller prospectors with limited capital. Nevertheless, some remarkable gems have been mined, including the Andamooka Opal which was discovered in and named after Andamooka.

Housing
The earliest miners occupied rough dugouts driven into the side of a hill. The underground portions provided excellent insulation against the extremes of outside temperature. Being unsurveyed, occupancy was determined by tenuous Miners' Right. That situation deterred capital investment and so in the 1970s Andamooka was essentially a declining shanty town. Civic affairs, such as they were, were organised by a citizens' progress association. Their limited activities mainly related to electricity generation and supply, and maintaining the dirt airstrip in case the Flying Doctor was needed. All roads were unsealed tracks, while the main street was a dry rocky creek bed (unless there was a rare thunderstorm). There were few government agencies. Until a police station was opened in 1966, the police made routine weekly visits from Woomera, a mostly military town that supported the Woomera Test Range and Joint Defense Facility Nurrungar. Unless there was an emergency in between these visits, the isolated settlement was self-policing. An establishment named the Tucker Box, which was a licensed restaurant, was the social hub. The Andamooka Co-Op Ltd supplied groceries and fuel.

In the 1980s, with an influx of work through the advent and development of the nearby mine at Olympic Dam, more houses were built and transported in. Many of the town's houses came from the demobilisation of Woomera. A transformation then took place. Not many people still live in the traditional dugout style houses of old, although remnants of the town's past remain in the main street, with the cottages of old miners dug into the side of the hill in the main street still standing.

Population
In the, the town had a population of 262 people. There was a surplus of males (54.1%) over females (45.9%). Their median age was 57 years, nineteen years older than the national median of 38. Children under 15 made up 10.8% of the population, and people aged 65 years and over made up 31.3%. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people made up 4.6% of the population. Most (75.2%) were born in Australia; the next most common countries of birth were England 6.1%, Austria 1.5%, Germany 1.5%, Croatia 1.5% and Italy 1.1%. The most common religious affiliation was "No Religion" 52.3%, followed by Catholic 17.6%, and non-denominational Christian 4.6%.

Its main industry was mining. Since the establishment of the nearby Olympic Dam copper-uranium mine and the town of Roxby Downs in the 1980s, some residents of Andamooka are now employed in the mine or in Roxby Downs, and many others are retired.

Until recently, Andamooka townsfolk had to rely on water supplies trucked in from Roxby Downs, or above ground cisterns for the limited rainfall of the region. A pipeline to the township has since been built, although water still has to be trucked to the town's water tanks.

Pop culture
The 1979 film The Last of the Knucklemen filmed its exterior shots in and around Andamooka. The "Andamooka Opal" was presented to Queen Elizabeth II on the occasion of her first visit to Australia in 1954. This opal, once cut, weighed in at 203 carat.

Andamooka was also referenced in the Max Brooks novel, World War Z.

Famous opals from Andamooka

 * The Andamooka Opal, presented to Queen Elizabeth II in 1954, also known as the Queen's Opal.
 * The Addyman Plesiosaur, "the finest known opalised skeleton on Earth".

Climate
Annual rainfall is extremely low, even by Australian standards, with the average in the region just 160 mm per year. The climate is very arid, with daytime temperatures in summer regularly topping 40 °C (104 °F) and night temperatures in winter often dropping close to zero (32 °F).

title: Andamooka, South Australia


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Roubaix

Roubaix ( or ; Robaais; Roboais; Picard: Roubés) is a city in northern France, located in the Lille metropolitan area on the Belgian border. It is a historically mono-industrial commune in the Nord department, which grew rapidly in the 19th century from its textile industries, with most of the same characteristic features as those of English and American boom towns. This former new town has faced many challenges linked to deindustrialisation such as urban decay, with their related economic and social implications, since its major industries fell into decline by the middle of the 1970s. Located to the northeast of Lille, adjacent to Tourcoing, Roubaix is the chef-lieu of two cantons and the third largest city in the French region of Hauts-de-France ranked by population with nearly 99,000 inhabitants.

Together with the nearby cities of Lille, Tourcoing, Villeneuve-d'Ascq and eighty-six other communes, Roubaix gives structure to a four-centred metropolitan area inhabited by more than 1.1 million people: the European Metropolis of Lille. To a greater extent, Roubaix is in the center of a vast conurbation formed with the Belgian cities of Mouscron, Kortrijk and Tournai, which gave birth to the first European Grouping of Territorial Cooperation in January 2008, Lille–Kortrijk–Tournai with an aggregate population of over 2 million inhabitants.

Location
Roubaix occupies a central position on the north-east slope of the Métropole Européenne de Lille: it is set on the eastern side of Lille and the southern side of Tourcoing, close to the Belgian border. As regards towns' boundaries, Roubaix is encompassed by seven cities which constitute its immediate neighbouring environment. These municipalities are namely: Tourcoing to the north and the northwest, Wattrelos to the northeast, Leers to the east, Lys-lez-Lannoy to the southeast, Hem to the south and Croix to the southwest and the west. Roubaix, alongside those municipalities and twenty-one other communes, belongs to the land of Ferrain, a little district of the former Castellany of Lille between the Lys and Scheldt rivers.

As the crow flies, the distance between Roubaix and the following cities is some odd: 16 km to Tournai, 18 km to Kortrijk, 84 km to Brussels and 213 km to Paris.

Geology
The land upon which Roubaix stands belongs to the plain of Flanders. The Roubaisian area stretches on an east-west oriented shallow syncline axis which trends south-southeast to the Paleozoic limestone of the Mélantois-Tournaisis faulted anticline. It consists predominantly of Holocene alluvial sediment depositions. It is flat and low, with an elevation drop of only 35m over its 13.23 km2. The lowest altitude of this area stands at 17m, while its highest altitude is 52m meters above the sea level.

Hydrology
The Trichon stream fed by waters of the Espierre stream used to flow through the rural landscape of Roubaix before the industrialisation process began to alter this area in the middle of the 19th century. From that century on, the ensuing industries, with their increasing needs for reliable supplies of goods and water, led to the building of an inland waterway connected upstream from the Deûle and downstream to the Marque and Espierre toward the Scheldt, which linked directly Roubaix to Lille.

Opened in 1877, the Canal de Roubaix crosses the town from its northern neighbourhoods to its eastern neighbourhoods and partially flows along the city's boundaries. The Canal de Roubaix closed in 1985, after more than a century in use. Thank to the European funded project Blue Links, the waterway has been reopened to boating traffic since 2011.

Climate
The area of the city is not known for undergoing unusual weather events. In regard to the town's geographical location and the results of the Météo-France's weather station of Lille-Lesquin, Roubaix is a temperate oceanic climate: while summer experiences mild temperatures, winter's temperatures may fall to below zero. Precipitation is infrequently intense.

Toponymy
The current city's name is most likely derived from Frankish rausa "reed" and baki "brook". Therefore, the meaning of Roubaix can, in all likelihood, find its origin on the banks of its three historical brooks: Espierre, Trichon and Favreuil. The place was mentioned for the first time in a Latinised form in the 9th century: Villa Rusbaci. Thereafter, the following names were in use: 1047 and 1106 Rubais, 1122 Rosbays, 1166 Rusbais, 1156 and 1202 Robais, 1223 Roubais. Over the span of centuries, the name evolved to Roubaix as shown on Mercator's map of Flanders published at Leuven in 1540.

Parallel to the official and usual name Roubaix, some translations are worth a mention. Firstly, though the city has never belonged to the Flemish-speaking area, the seldom-heard renderings Robeke and Roodebeeke are documented for Roubaix. Furthermore, the Dutch Language Union established Robaais as the city's proper Dutch name. Lastly, one can cite Rosbacum as the definite Latin transcription of Roubaix which has been in use since the 19th century, as recorded on dedication statements sealed in the first stones of the foundations of the City Hall laid in 1840 and the Church of Notre Dame laid in 1842.

People
Inhabitants of Roubaix are known in English as "Roubaisians" and in French as Roubaisiens or in the feminine form Roubaisiennes, also natively called Roubaignots  or in the feminine form Roubaignotes.

Demographics
The evolution of the number of inhabitants is known through the population censuses carried out in the town since 1793 and the research study of Louis-Edmond Marissal, Clerk of the Peace of the city, published in 1844. Roubaix evolved into a provincial market town until the end of the Early modern period with a census population of 4,715 inhabitants in 1716. By the late 18th century, the city began to emerge as regional textile manufacturing centre and its population increased, reaching a level of 8,091 in 1800. As a result of the industrialisation process of the 19th century, the need of workers was supplied by rural flight as well as immigration. Belgian settlement was a feature of the Roubaisian life at that time.

During the first-half period of the 19th century, Roubaix ranked the first French town in terms of population growth rate with a five times increase, whereas in the remaining period of this century its population doubled. Within this last time framework, Belgian immigration appeared to be one of the major factor to explain the significantly high population growth, with 30,465 Belgian inhabitants counted in 1866 and 42,103 in 1872. Nonetheless, the rate of natural increase shew to be a more important component of the population growth in that period.

At the 20th century threshold, the Roubaisian population reached a peak of 124,661, from which it progressively declined over the successive decades. Occupied by German troops from October 1914 to October 1918, Roubaix belonged to the combat zone of the Western Front during the First World War. Over this occupation period, Roubaisians suffered from dearth, deportation for compulsory labour and unusual casualties with a rather slight population drop from 122,723 to 113,265 between the 1911 and 1921 censuses.

The population of the city was 98,828 as of January 2019. This enables Roubaix to remain the third largest municipality in the region Hauts-de-France, after Lille and Amiens.

As of 2019, at least 25% of residents in Roubaix were immigrants, mainly of Arab, North African, Turkish, and Sub-Saharan African origin.

Languages
Although the region of Roubaix was subjected many times to the domination of Flanders' rulers throughout its history, Roubaisians have used a local Picard variant as the language of everyday life for centuries. This spoken vernacular is locally known as Roubaignot. Until the early 20th century this patois prevailed. Therefore, French language progressive penetration into local culture should not only be analysed as a result of the industrialisation and urbanisation of the area but should also be considered in terms of public education policies.

Christianity
The city of Roubaix is divided into six Catholic parishes and belongs to the deanery of the same name in the archdiocese of Lille.

Judaism
In the aftermath of the Franco-Prussian War and the German annexation of Alsace-Lorraine, many Jews left their homes and emigrated. Jewish arrival in Roubaix derives from that bitter period of history. At the time, the new immigrant community, even though its small size, dedicated a building to Jewish faith and liturgical practises. The newly opened synagogue, located in a house at number 51 on the narrow rue des Champs, operated more than 60 years, until 1939, when it was closed under imprecise local circumstances as the Nazi regime took over in Europe. Despite the closure of the synagogue, the occupation and police raids, the local practise of Judaism saw a humble revival after the war which lasted until the start of the 1990s when the modest Jewry of Roubaix handed over its Sefer Torah to the care of the Jewish community of Lille. Roubaix has no longer been home to a Jewish place of worship since that event. The house inside which the first one was created 123 years ago, has been demolished since an urban renewal project occurred in 2000. On 10 September 2015 the mayor unveiled a commemorative plaque on the rue des Champs, as a tribute to the Roubaisian Jewry, in memory of the religious purpose of this previous building.

Islam
As of August 2013 there were six mosques in the town, including one under construction. According to estimates by the mayor's office, around 20,000 people, or at least 20% of the population were Muslims. Over one-in-three residents in Roubaix are of Arab, North African, Turkish, and Sub-Saharan African origin. Four areas of the cemetery were designated for Muslims.

Buddhism
During the second half of the 20th century, the city took in Buddhist communities from originally Buddhist countries in the Southeast Asian peninsula including Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, and Vietnam. Within this background Roubaix has brought together two Buddhist traditions on its territory, hence cultural variations across communities: Mahāyāna and Theravāda with, respectively, one and four places of worship.

Urban geography
During the Middle Age, the city grew in a northward-facing semicircle around its primitive core, beyond the area spread out between the church Saint Martin and the former fortified castle. The existence of this south boundary remained until the 18th century and marked an urban expansion which mainly occurred on the western and northern sides of the town. Increasing industrialisation, land transport improvement, continued population growth and the resulting need for suitable low cost lands for housing and manufacturing plants, all of which finally led to expand the city southward from the centre, in the 19th century.

Constituencies and cantons
Roubaix grouped four cantons from 1988 to 2012. Since then, this number has fallen to two with Roubaix 1 and Roubaix 2. After the last redistricting of French legislative constituencies in 2010, the city is now divided into two constituencies: Nord's 7th constituency which include the former canton of Roubaix-Ouest and Nord's 8th constituency formed by the following former cantons: Roubaix-Centre, Roubaix-Nord and Roubaix-Est.

Eastern district neighbourhoods

 * Fraternité
 * Pile
 * Sainte-Elisabeth
 * Sartel-Carihem
 * Trois Ponts

Western district neighbourhoods

 * Epeule
 * Fresnoy-Mackellerie
 * Trichon

Central district neighbourhoods

 * Anseelme Motte-Bossut
 * Barbieux
 * Centre-ville
 * Crouy
 * Espérance
 * Nations-Unies
 * Vauban

Northern district neighbourhoods

 * Alma-Gare
 * Armentières
 * Cul de Four
 * Entrepont
 * Fosses aux Chênes
 * Hommelet
 * Hutin-Oran-Cartigny

Southern district neighbourhoods

 * Chemin Neuf
 * Edouard Vaillant
 * Hauts-Champs
 * Justice
 * Linné-Boulevards
 * Moulin
 * Nouveau Roubaix
 * Petites-Haies
 * Potennerie

International relations
Roubaix is twinned with:

 * Bradford, United Kingdom, since 1969
 * 🇩🇪 Mönchengladbach, Germany, since 1969
 * 🇧🇪 Verviers, Belgium, since 1969
 * Skopje, North Macedonia, since 1973
 * 🇮🇹 Prato, Italy, since 1981
 * 🇵🇱 Sosnowiec, Poland, since 1993
 * Covilhã, Portugal, since 2000
 * Bouïra, Algeria, since 2003

Landmarks
Remarkable buildings, old brick factories and warehouses abound in this once renowned city which was esteemed to be a worldwide textile capital in the early years of the 20th century. Thus, the city inherited one of the most architectural works in the French history and culture of the 19th century Industrial Revolution and was designated Town of Art and History on 13 December 2000. Ever since the Ministry of Culture endowed Roubaix with this label, the city has entered the 21st century by promoting its cultural standing as the inheritance of its industrial and social history.

Several profane or sacral buildings of Roubaix are registered as historic monuments.

 * Secular buildings registered as monuments historiques

Sculptures and memorials
The city has been the place where illustrious names of French sculptors put their skills to create memorial monuments since the end of the 19th century until the middle of the 20th century. After a long slack period 2010 introduced a shift in the genre with the unveiling of Wim Delvoye's Discobolos, a statue of modern art conceived as a welcoming sign to a neighbourhood of the city. The sculptures and memorial monuments in Roubaix which deserve notice for their historical or artistical interest are mentioned below.

 * Discobolos: a New patrons project by Wim Delvoye (sculptor), Bruno Dupont (mediator), Fondation de France and city of Roubaix (supporters), ordered by the neighbourhood residents with the members of the Hommelet neighbourhood committee and inaugurated on 5 June 2010
 * Joan of Arc statue: Maxime Real del Sarte (sculptor), inaugurated on 27 May 1952
 * Memorial to Jean-Baptiste Lebas: Albert de Jaeger (sculptor), funded through public subscription and inaugurated on 23 October 1949
 * Memorial to Resistance Martyrs of Roubaix: Albert de Jaeger (sculptor), engraved "Roubaix a ses martyrs de la Résistance" and "Ils ont brisé les chaînes de l'oppression", ordered by the City council and inaugurated on 11 November 1948
 * Memorial to Eugène Motte: Raoul Bénard (sculptor), Gustave Poubel (architect), funded through public subscription and inaugurated on 22 September 1935
 * Memorial to Jean-Joseph Weerts: Alexandre Descatoire (sculptor), ordered by the City council and inaugurated on 29 October 1931
 * Memorial to Louis Bossut: Maxime Real del Sarte (sculptor), ordered by the City council and inaugurated on 4 October 1925
 * Monuments aux Morts or World War I Memorial of Roubaix: Alexandre Descatoire (sculptor), Jean-Frédéric Wielhorski (architect), engraved "Roubaix à ses enfants morts pour la défense du pays et pour la paix", ordered by the City council and inaugurated on 18 October 1925
 * Memorial to Jules Guesde: Georgette Agutte-Sembat (sculptor), Albert Bührer (architect), funded through public subscription and inaugurated on 12 April 1925
 * Memorial to Amédée Prouvost: Hippolyte Lefèbvre (sculptor), ordered by the City council and inaugurated on 29 October 1922
 * Memorial to Pierre Destombes: Corneille Theunissen (sculptor), engraved "Hortorum, Musicae, Librorumque, Studiosus", ordered by the City council and inaugurated on 29 October 1922
 * Memorial to Gustave Nadaud: Alphonse-Amédée Cordonnier (sculptor), Gustave Leblanc-Barbedienne (art founder), inaugurated on 11 October 1896

Museums
Roubaix has been home to two major museums of the region Hauts-de-France since the beginning of the 21st century: La Piscine and La Manufacture; inheriting both of the local socioeconomic history. La Piscine, also known as the Musée d'Art & d'Industrie André Diligent, is one of the most lauded cultural attractions in northern France. This museum is housed in the Art Deco-style former swimming pool of Roubaix, a building remodelled in 2000 to accommodate and exhibit 19th and 20th century collections of the city. After being closed for two years of renovation works and extension, it was reopened to the public in October 2018, becoming more successful than ever before. La Manufacture is the reference textile museum in northern France. It is hosted in an old weaving factory.

Painting
The most prestigious names of painters, who made their reputation in Roubaix from the middle of the 19th century to the early 20th century are Jean-Joseph Weerts and Rémy Cogghe.

From the end of the Second World War to the beginning of the 1970s, a casual group of young artists from Roubaix and the surrounding region was formed and given the name Groupe de Roubaix. Two painters commonly associated with the group are Arthur Van Hecke and Eugène Leroy.

Fashion
Anxious to restore the prestige of northern France's textile industry and operating under the label of Maisons de Mode, the cities of Lille and Roubaix have created spaces for new fashion designers to thrive since 2007. The Roubaisian location, next to La Piscine museum, is known as Le Vestiaire. There are fifteen boutiques and fashion studios housed in an old industrial building.

Theatre and performing arts centres

 * Centre chorégraphique national Roubaix - Hauts-de-France
 * Colisée
 * Condition publique
 * Théâtre de l'Oiseau-Mouche "Le Garage"
 * Théâtre Louis Richard
 * Théâtre Pierre de Roubaix

Cinema
The city of Roubaix has a rich heritage in film production and been the filming location (mostly or partly) of the following productions:

 * I Am a Soldier (French: Je suis un soldat), directed by Laurent Larivière in 2015
 * My Golden Days (French: Trois souvenirs de ma jeunesse), directed by Arnaud Desplechin in 2015
 * Discount, directed by Louis-Julien Petit in 2014
 * Queens of the Ring (French: Les Reines du ring), directed by Jean-Marc Rudnicki in 2013
 * Blue Is the Warmest Colour (French: La Vie d'Adèle – Chapitres 1 & 2), directed by Abdellatif Kechiche in 2013
 * A Christmas Tale (French: Un conte de Noël), directed by Arnaud Desplechin in 2008
 * The Banishment (Russian: Изгнание, Izgnanie), directed by Andrey Zvyagintsev in 2007
 * In His Hands (French: Entre ses mains), directed by Anne Fontaine in 2005
 * The Axe (French: Le couperet), directed by Costa-Gavras in 2005
 * Save Me (French: Sauve-Moi), directed by Christian Vincent in 2000
 * Flat Land Cities (French: Les Cités de la plaine), directed by Robert Kramer in 1999
 * The Dreamlife of Angels (French: La Vie rêvée des anges), directed by Erick Zonca in 1998
 * Enigma, directed by Jeannot Szwarc in 1982
 * Life Is a Long Quiet River (French: La vie est un long fleuve tranquille), directed by Étienne Chatiliez in 1988
 * Hurricane Rosy (Italian: Temporale Rosy, French: Rosy la bourrasque), directed by Mario Monicelli in 1979
 * Swimming Instructor (French: Le Maître-nageur), directed by Jean-Louis Trintignant in 1979
 * Body of My Enemy (French: Le Corps de mon ennemi), directed by Henri Verneuil in 1976
 * A Sunday in Hell (Danish: En Forårsdag i Helvede), Danish documentary directed by Jørgen Leth in 1976
 * The Confession (French: L'Aveu), directed by Costa Gavras in 1970
 * Struggle in Italy (Italian: Lotte in Italia), directed by the Dziga Vertov Group in 1970

Higher education

 * The EDHEC Business School is one of the few Grandes École located outside the Paris Metropolitan Area. It is one of Europe's fastest rising business schools.
 * ENSAIT is a higher education and research institute, gathering all the disciplines related to textiles.
 * ESAAT is a design education institute.
 * Decentralisation of the Universities of Lille II and Lille III

Libraries

 * Médiathèque "La Grand'Plage"
 * National Archives of the World of Work

Sport
Roubaix has an old sporting heritage and is home to the finish of one of the world's oldest races of professional road cycling at its velodrome: Paris–Roubaix, known as the Hell of the North. While Roubaix is famous for its velodrome, there is more to this city than the cycling sports facilities.

The building of indoor and outdoor sports amenities in the city should be associated with its era of economic rise during the industrial revolution, in addition to the development of local sporting clubs and associations.

In October 2021 Roubaix hosted the 2021 UCI Track Cycling World Championships.

Economy
During the 19th century, Roubaix acquired an international reputation for textile industry and wool production. In the 1970s and 1980s, international competition and automation caused an industrial decline and resulted in the closure of many factories. From that moment on and since the implementation of the French urban policy in the early 1980s, around three-fourths of the town's territory has been regularly assigned specific zoning designations as well as health and welfare plans.

Roubaix's high level of unemployment is a consequence of the deindustrialisation. The town is listed among France's poorest cities. Successive local governments have tried to address difficulties associated with deindustrialisation by attracting new industries, making the most of the town's cultural credentials and organising a strong student presence on different campuses. While undergoing conversion efforts, the city is experimenting with new models and able to take advantage of successful economic stories, with online retail and information technology, and seems to be on the way to reverse the decades of decline.

Textile industry
Nowadays, local textile companies are focusing on developing high-tech textile products.

Commerce and services
Mail order companies of international renown such as La Redoute, Damart and 3 Suisses,  stemmed from textile industries which were founded in Roubaix. Showroomprive.com has been locally established since 2016 as an e-commerce company that specialises in online flash sales.

Information technology and e-business

 * OVH was created in Roubaix in 1999 and became a global IT infrastructure company, creating more than thousand jobs in the city and surroundings. Its head office is still in Roubaix.
 * Ankama Games has established its head office in Roubaix since 2007.
 * Blanchemaille, an e-commerce cluster helped by the incubator EuraTechnologies, has been established in the former building of La Redoute in Roubaix since 2014.

Transportation
A22 autoroute, a French part of the European route E17 from Burgundy to Antwerp, is the only motorway, within a motorway roads network of the highest density in France after Paris, which passes by Roubaix.

The Gare de Roubaix railway station offers connections to Antwerp, Lille, Ostend, Paris and Tourcoing.

The city is also served by the Lille Metro.

Environmental perspectives
Throughout the 1970s and 1980s desindustrialisation dramatically influenced major urban landscapes across the arrondissement of Lille. Large areas of brownfield land came to mark the city of Roubaix. With the support of the local and national government programs, these areas are acquired and gradually restored or rebuilt.

Roubaix has one of the most efficient biomass district heating plant in France and is therefore among the most advanced cities for sustainability in Hauts-de-France. Since 2014, the city has been engaged in several related initiatives aimed at moving to a circular economy and a zero waste future.

Artists

 * Wanani Gradi Mariadi (1990–): rapper known as Gradur
 * Kaddour Hadadi (1976–): singer and author known as HK
 * Philippe Dhondt (1965–): singer, songwriter and composer known as Boris
 * Arnaud Desplechin (1960–): film director
 * Édouard Devernay (1889–1952): organist, composer
 * Wladyslaw Znorko (1958–2013): theatre author and director
 * Philippe Barraqué (1954–): musicologist, music therapist, composer and singer
 * Étienne Chatiliez (1952–): film director
 * Roger Delmotte (1925–): classical trumpeter
 * Philippe Lefebvre (1949–): musician, principal organist of Notre Dame Cathedral of Paris
 * Chantal Ladesou (1948–): actress and comedian
 * Agnès Guillemot (1931–2005): film editor
 * Pierre Jansen (1930–2015): film music composer
 * Jenny Clève (1930–2023): actress
 * Elisabeth Yvonne Scatcherd (1928–): film actress known as Yvonne Furneaux
 * Charles Gadenne (1925–2012): sculptor
 * Georges Delerue (1925–1992): composer who worked on over 350 scores for cinema and television
 * Arthur Van Hecke (1924–2003): painter
 * Gabrielle Vervaecke (1921–2005): composer and singer known as Gaby Verlor
 * Viviane Romance (1912–1991): actress
 * Albert de Jaeger (1908–1992): sculptor, printmaker, medallist and smelter
 * Charles Bodart-Timal (1897–1971): songwriter and chansonnier
 * Jules Gressier (1897–1960): conductor
 * Francis Bousquet (1890–1942): Marseille-born composer
 * Léon Mathot (1886–1968): film actor and director
 * Silas Broux (1867–1957): painter
 * Jean-Joseph Weerts (1846–1927): painter
 * Rémy Cogghe (1846–1927): Belgian-born painter who resided in Roubaix
 * Gustave Nadaud (1820–1893): songwriter and chansonnier

Athletes

 * Wassim Aouachria (2000–): football player
 * Ahmed Touba (1998–): football player
 * Moussa Niakhaté (1996–): football player
 * Christoffer Mafoumbi (1994–): goalkeeper
 * Saoussen Boudiaf (1993–): sabre fencer
 * Anthony Knockaert (1991–): football player
 * Aliou Dia (1990–): football player
 * Antoine Roussel (1989–): ice hockey player
 * Pierrick Gunther (1989–): rugby union player
 * Idir Ouali (1988–): football player
 * Martial Mbandjock (1985–): sprinter
 * Seïd Khiter (1985–): football player
 * Daouda Sow (1983–): boxer
 * Yero Dia (1982–): football player
 * Icham Mouissi (1982–): Algerian football player
 * David Coulibaly (1978–): football player
 * Arnaud Tournant (1978–): track cyclist
 * Christophe Landrin (1977–): football midfielder
 * Jacques-Olivier Paviot (1976–): football player
 * Fatiha Ouali (1974–): race walker
 * Michel Breistroff (1971–1996): ice hockey player
 * Pierre Dréossi (1959–): former football player, coach and football manager
 * Alain Bondue (1959–): racing cyclist
 * Jean-Christian Lang (1950–): football manager and former player
 * Jacques Carette (1947–): athlete
 * René Libeer (1934–2006): boxer
 * Jacques Pollet (1922–1997): racing driver
 * Gonzague Olivier (1921–2013): racing driver
 * Jacques Leenaert (1921–2004): football player
 * Prudent Joye (1913–1980): track and field athlete
 * Georges Beaucourt (1912–2002): football player
 * Raymond Dubly (1893–1988): football player
 * Jean Alavoine (1888–1943): cyclist
 * Charles Crupelandt (1886–1955): Wattrelos-born professional road bicycle racer
 * Arthur Balbaert (1879–1938): Belgian sports shooter

Politicians and professionals

 * Karima Delli (1979–): politician, Member of the European Parliament
 * Florence Morlighem (1970–): politician, Member of Parliament
 * Olivier Henno (1962–): politician, mayor of Saint-André-lez-Lille and general councillor
 * Jean-Robert de Cavel (1961–2022): French-American chef de cuisine
 * Benoît Duquesne (1957–2014): journalist, television reporter and newscaster
 * Pierre Pribetich (1956–): politician, former Member of the European Parliament
 * Marie-Christine Blandin (1952–): politician, member of the Senate of France, representing the Nord department
 * Jean-Luc Brunin (1951–): clergyman, bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Le Havre
 * Alex Türk (1950–): politician, member of the Senate of France, representing the Nord department
 * Bernard Arnault (1949–): business magnate, investor and art collector
 * Bruno Masure (1947–): journalist, news anchor and television presenter
 * Auguste Mimerel (1786–1871), industrialist and politician
 * Gérard Mulliez (1931–): businessman, founder of the Auchan chain of department stores
 * Robert Diligent (1924–2014): journalist, founding members of Télé Luxembourg
 * Francis Pollet (1964–): general officer
 * André Diligent (1919–2002): lawyer and politician, World War II resistance activist, deputy to the National Assembly, senator-mayor of Roubaix
 * Marcel Verfaillie (1911–1945): communist militant, World War II resistance activist against Nazism, died in concentration camp
 * Pierre Herman (1910–1990): politician, deputy to the National Assembly
 * Pierre Pflimlin (1907–2000): lawyer and politician, last Prime Minister of the Fourth Republic
 * Raymond Schmittlein (1904–1974): toponymist and politician, deputy to the National Assembly
 * Jean-Baptiste Lebas (1898–1944): politician, mayor of Roubaix, deputy to the National Assembly, World War I and II resistance activist, died in deportation custody
 * Antoine Cordonnier (1892–1918): military aviator, flying ace during World War I
 * Jules Dumont (1888–1943): communist militant, commanded the Commune de Paris Battalion, a unit part of the XI International Brigade
 * Jean Prouvost (1885–1978): businessman, media owner and politician
 * Charles Vanden Bosch (1883–1945): Belgian Roman Catholic Franciscan priest, founder of the Belgian National work for the Blind, died in concentration camp
 * Louis Loucheur (1872–1931): writer and politician, deputy to the National Assembly
 * Ferdinand Bonnel (1865–1945): Jesuit priest and missionary in Sri Lanka
 * Théodore Vienne (1864–1921): textile manufacturer and co-founder of Paris–Roubaix cycle race
 * Eugène Motte (1860–1932): politician and businessman, mayor of Roubaix, deputy to the National Assembly
 * Pierre Wibaux (1858–1913): cattle-rancher, banker and gold-mine owner, emigrated from France to the United States
 * Jules Guesde (1845–1922): Paris-born socialist journalist and politician, deputy of the constituency of Roubaix to the National Assembly
 * Jean Desbouvrie (c. 1840–1847-?): inventor and bird tamer
 * Gérard Vachonfrance (1933–2008): physician and society co-founder
 * Marie Léonie Vanhoutte (1888–1967): French resistance fighter and secret-agent during World War I.

Scientists

 * Stanislas Dehaene (1965–): cognitive psychologist, professor at the Collège de France and author
 * Bernard Amadei (1954–): professor of civil engineering at the University of Colorado, founder of Engineers Without Borders (USA)
 * Dominique Mulliez (1952–): epigrapher, archaeologist and Hellenist
 * Marguerite Dupire (1920–2015): ethnologist
 * Robert Jonckhèere (1888–1974): astronomer
 * Joseph Willot (1875–1919): pharmacist and World War I resistance activist

Writers

 * Marie Desplechin (1959–): writer and journalist
 * Pierre Pierrard (1920–2005): historian
 * Michel Décaudin (1919–2004): Romance linguist, literature professor and author
 * Richard Cobb (1917–1996): British social historian. Lived in Roubaix in the 1940s.
 * Octave Vandekerkhove (1911–1987): writer
 * Maxence Van Der Meersch (1907–1951): writer
 * Maurice Nédoncelle (1905–1976): personalist philosopher
 * Yanette Delétang-Tardif (1902–1976): poet
 * Amédée Prouvost (1877–1909): poet
 * Jules Feller (1859–1940): Romance linguist and philologist, Belgian academician and Walloon militant

title: Roubaix


text:
Talk:Audience (meeting)

You use the wording:
 * An Audience is a formal meeting that takes place between a head of state and another person at the invitation of the head of state. Often the invitation follows a request for a meeting from the other person.

I ought of course trust you, as an native English speaker, but I wonder if you wouldn't better use the term "ruler" instead of "head of state"?

My background for this enquire is of course continental. :-)

I know, or I believe I know, that in some other languages (French, German, Danish/Swedish) you don't have to be specifically Head of State to receive petitioners in audience. The central aspect is that as a ruler you are expected to hear petitions from the ruled, for instance complains over verdicts in judicial courts and over the administration of the ruler's representatives. I would therefore suggest that judges and governors in principle also can be visited in a formal audience, and I am pretty sure that you in prose on Germanic languages can find the word used also in connection with ruling dukes, etc, regardless of if they are head-of-state or just plain vassals. I wonder how a translator to English would handle that. My bet is that the translator would use the word audience also in English, but now I'm on really thin ice.

Another thing is that I was under the impression that in Britain peers are or were granted a right to meet the monarch in audience, why I actually also question your phrase "at the invitation of the head of state".

I would rather propose something like:
 * An audience is a formal interview where a ruler in person receives the views or complaints from ruled subjects or representatives for other rulers.

alternatively:
 * An audience is a formal interview where a ruler in person receives the views, proposals or complaints from ruled subjects. Similarly it means the ceremony of admission of ambassadors and envoys for an interview with a sovereign, or an important official of the sovereign, to present their credentials.

and further:
 * Though sometimes used in republics to describe meetings with presidents, the term Audience is more usually associated with monarchs and popes. In France and Spain judicial complaints are heard by high judges representing the monarch, why the term additionally is connected with the highest court of appeal.

-- Ruhrjung 07:20, 8 Aug 2003 (UTC)

No. You are talking about something completely different to what this page is about.

1. An Audience is not about receiving petitions. Petitions may be received in an Audience but that is a different matter that belongs under a different definition dealing with petitions. Audiences are simply meetings, nothing more. And as few heads of state are rulers anymore, ancient traditions on petitions rarely exist anymore. However a separate page on the historical concept of rulers receiving petitions would be a very good idea. It could then be linked here. Given the complexity of the issue, and that it does not necessarily involve heads of state, it would be more sensible to have that in a separate page rather than here, where we are simply talking about heads of state.

2. Audiences are granted by a head of state. They are not anyone's automatic right. Some heads of state automatically grant requests. Some monarchs automatically grant Audiences to any citizen who wants to meet them. Some automatically grant audiences to Peers of the Realm, etc. But it is still a grant, not a right.

3. Regarding 'rulers' for 'head of state'. Monarchs in constitutional monarchies are not rulers. Neither are the vast majority of presidents. The only words that describes a head of state in any jurisdiction is head of state. No other term is accurate. FearÉIREANN 17:21, 8 Aug 2003 (UTC)

One can't always get the answers one expected. It doesn't seem as I can present convincing support for my view. I rest my case, as I believe they use to say on TV in similar situations. :) -- Ruhrjung 06:54, 9 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Can we have a better disambiguating term? For a while I thought that there was a head of some state named Audience. I think "Audience with a head of state (or ruler)" or "Audience (politics)" might be better. --seav 07:45, Aug 8, 2003 (UTC)

 * There is no other potential disambigulation term that is workable. The rule is to use the term not a sentence if it only consists of one word, and Audience only consists of one word. And if as in this case it is necessary to disambigulate, say what is its characteristic is in the disambigulation. This exclusively concerns heads of state, so head of state is the necessary and obvious disambigulation term. It is the standard wiki usage. Politics is a non-starter; most heads of state are non-political and many of the people they meet are not politicians. If you were to disambigulate using that, you would have to put in politics, religion, military, public, state, etc the person in the Audience may be from any one of those categories or another fifty ones. Audience (head of state) is the standard usage that makes clear the issue being discussed is an Audience, and it is its meaning as regards heads of state that is being discussed. FearÉIREANN 17:21, 8 Aug 2003 (UTC)

 * According to your example of "politics, religion, military, public, state, etc", then it should be "head of state, military officer, religious head, etc." I don't see how "head of state" encompasses all the other situations. Here are definitions from online dictionaries for this word:

 * A formal hearing, as with a religious or state dignitary.
 * A conference (usually with someone important)
 * Admittance to a hearing; a formal interview, esp. with a sovereign or the head of a government, for conference or the transaction of business.

 * If politics is unacceptable then maybe dialogue or interview or conference (as in a press conference). I just don't agree with head of state. --seav 17:45, Aug 8, 2003 (UTC)

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title: Talk:Audience (meeting)


text:
Tourcoing

Tourcoing (Toerkonje ; Terkoeje; Tourco) is a city in northern France on the Belgian border. It is designated municipally as a commune within the department of Nord. Located to the north-northeast of Lille, adjacent to Roubaix, Tourcoing is the chef-lieu of two cantons and the fourth largest city in the French region of Hauts-de-France ranked by population with about 97,000 inhabitants.

Together with the cities of Lille, Roubaix, Villeneuve-d'Ascq and eighty-six other communes, Tourcoing is part of four-city-centred metropolitan area inhabited by more than 1.1 million people: the Métropole Européenne de Lille. To a greater extent, Tourcoing belongs to a vast conurbation formed with the Belgian cities of Mouscron, Kortrijk and Tournai, which gave birth to the first European Grouping of Territorial Cooperation in January 2008, Lille–Kortrijk–Tournai with an aggregate of just over 2 million inhabitants.

History
The city was the site of a significant victory for France during the French Revolutionary Wars. Marshal Charles Pichegru and his generals Joseph Souham and Jean Moreau defeated a combined force of British and Austrian troops in the Battle of Tourcoing on 29 Floréal II (18 May 1794).

Main sights

 * Church of St Christopher (15th-16th centuries), considered one of the most beautiful Neo-Gothic edifices of Nord. In stone and brickwork, it has an 80 m high bell tower with more than 80 bells.
 * Hospice de Havre, founded in 1260. The cloister and the chapel date from the seventeenth century.
 * Hôtel de ville  (1885), in Napoleon III-style.
 * Jardin botanique de Tourcoing, a botanical garden and arboretum.

Transport
The Tourcoing station is a railway station offering direct connections to Lille and Paris (high speed trains), Kortrijk, Ostend, Ghent and Antwerp. The town was formerly served by the Somain-Halluin Railway.

Notable people

 * Yohan Cabaye, footballer
 * Jean-Marc Degraeve, chess grandmaster
 * Stéphane Denève, conductor
 * Brigitte Fossey, actress
 * Anna Gomis, wrestler
 * Henri Padou, water polo player and 1924 Olympic gold medallist
 * Brigitte Lahaie, pornstar
 * Joseph-Charles Lefèbvre, bishop of Bourges, cardinal, cousin of
 * Marcel Lefebvre, missionary priest and, later, archbishop, cousin of Joseph-Charles
 * Mr. Sam, a popular deejay and producer running his own record label since 2008.
 * Albert Roussel, composer
 * Yves Devernay, organist

Guilbert de Lannoy (1545-c. 1601) and his son Jean de Lannoy (1575-c. 1605) were Protestants from Tourcoing who resettled in Leiden, Holland. Jean's son, Philip Delano (c. 1603 - c. 1681-82; born Philipe de la Noye or Philipe de Lannoy), was an early emigrant to the Plymouth Colony and progenitor of the prominent Delano family, which counts among its descendants prominent figures in American history, including president Franklin Roosevelt.

Notable Startups
In 2013, Maxime Piquette and Charles De Potter founded iCreo, a digital audio company in Tourcoing. The company created RadioKing, a platform for internet radio, and Ausha, a platform for podcast hosting and marketing. It received support from regional funders, Nord France Amorquage and IRD Gestion. The company is now the platform for media outlets Le Figaro, Liberation, l'Équipe and AFP, as well as large corporations and independent content producers.

Twin towns - sister cities
Tourcoing is twinned with:

 * 🇮🇹 Biella, Italy
 * 🇩🇪 Bottrop, Germany
 * 🇵🇱 Jastrzębie-Zdrój, Poland
 * 🇩🇪 Mitte (Berlin), Germany
 * 🇩🇪 Mühlhausen, Germany
 * 🇧🇾 Partyzanski (Minsk), Belarus

Other forms of cooperation

 * Guimarães, Portugal
 * 🇧🇪 Mouscron, Belgium
 * 🏴 Rochdale, England

title: Tourcoing


text:
XOR linked list

An XOR linked list is a type of data structure used in computer programming. It takes advantage of the bitwise XOR operation to decrease storage requirements for doubly linked lists by storing the composition of both addresses in one field. While the composed address is not meaningful on its own, during traversal it can be combined with knowledge of the last-visited node address to deduce the address of the following node.

Description
An ordinary doubly linked list stores addresses of the previous and next list items in each list node, requiring two address fields:

... A       B        C         D         E ... –> next –>  next  –>  next  –> <– prev <–  prev  <–  prev  <–

An XOR linked list compresses the same information into one address field by storing the bitwise XOR (here denoted by ⊕) of the address for previous and the address for next in one field:

... A       B          C          D         E ... ⇌  A⊕C   ⇌   B⊕D   ⇌   C⊕E   ⇌

More formally: link(B) = addr(A)⊕addr(C), link(C) = addr(B)⊕addr(D), ...

When traversing the list from left to right: supposing the cursor is at C, the previous item, B, may be XORed with the value in the link field (B⊕D). The address for D will then be obtained and list traversal may resume. The same pattern applies in the other direction.

i.e. addr(D) = link(C) ⊕ addr(B) where link(C) = addr(B)⊕addr(D) so addr(D) = addr(B)⊕addr(D) ⊕ addr(B) addr(D) = addr(B)⊕addr(B) ⊕ addr(D) since X⊕X = 0 => addr(D) = 0 ⊕ addr(D) since X⊕0 = X       => addr(D) = addr(D) The XOR operation cancels addr(B) appearing twice in the equation and all we are left with is the addr(D).

To start traversing the list in either direction from some point, the address of two consecutive items is required. If the addresses of the two consecutive items are reversed, list traversal will occur in the opposite direction.

Theory of operation
The key is the first operation, and the properties of XOR:
 * X⊕X = 0
 * X⊕0 = X
 * X⊕Y = Y⊕X
 * (X⊕Y)⊕Z = X⊕(Y⊕Z)

The R2 register always contains the XOR of the address of current item C with the address of the predecessor item P: C⊕P. The Link fields in the records contain the XOR of the left and right successor addresses, say L⊕R. XOR of R2 (C⊕P) with the current link field (L⊕R) yields C⊕P⊕L⊕R.
 * If the predecessor was L, the P(=L) and L cancel out leaving C⊕R.
 * If the predecessor had been R, the P(=R) and R cancel, leaving C⊕L.

In each case, the result is the XOR of the current address with the next address. XOR of this with the current address in R1 leaves the next address. R2 is left with the requisite XOR pair of the (now) current address and the predecessor.

Features

 * Two XOR operations suffice to do the traversal from one item to the next, the same instructions sufficing in both cases. Consider a list with items  and with R1 and R2 being registers containing, respectively, the address of the current (say C) list item and a work register containing the XOR of the current address with the previous address (say C⊕D).  Cast as System/360 instructions:

X R2,Link    R2 <- C⊕D ⊕ B⊕D (i.e. B⊕C, "Link" being the link field                                   in the current record, containing B⊕D) XR R1,R2     R1 <- C ⊕ B⊕C    (i.e. B, voilà: the next record)

 * End of list is signified by imagining a list item at address zero placed adjacent to an end point, as in . The link field at A would be 0⊕B. An additional instruction is needed in the above sequence after the two XOR operations to detect a zero result in developing the address of the current item,
 * A list end point can be made reflective by making the link pointer be zero. A zero pointer is a mirror. (The XOR of the left and right neighbor addresses, being the same, is zero.)

Drawbacks

 * General-purpose debugging tools cannot follow the XOR chain, making debugging more difficult;
 * The price for the decrease in memory usage is an increase in code complexity, making maintenance more expensive;
 * Most garbage collection schemes do not work with data structures that do not contain literal pointers;
 * Not all languages support type conversion between pointers and integers, XOR on pointers is not defined in some contexts;
 * While traversing the list, the address of the previously accessed node is needed to calculate the next node's address and the pointers will be unreadable if one isn't traversing the list—for example, if the pointer to a list item was contained in another data structure;
 * XOR linked lists do not provide some of the important advantages of doubly linked lists, such as the ability to delete a node from the list knowing only its address or the ability to insert a new node before or after an existing node when knowing only the address of the existing node.

Computer systems have increasingly cheap and plentiful memory, therefore storage overhead is not generally an overriding issue outside specialized embedded systems. Where it is still desirable to reduce the overhead of a linked list, unrolling provides a more practical approach (as well as other advantages, such as increasing cache performance and speeding random access).

Variations
The underlying principle of the XOR linked list can be applied to any reversible binary operation. Replacing XOR by addition or subtraction gives slightly different, but largely equivalent, formulations:

Addition linked list
... A        B         C         D         E  ... ⇌  A+C   ⇌   B+D   ⇌   C+E   ⇌

This kind of list has exactly the same properties as the XOR linked list, except that a zero link field is not a "mirror". The address of the next node in the list is given by subtracting the previous node's address from the current node's link field.

Subtraction linked list
... A        B         C         D         E  ... ⇌  C-A   ⇌   D-B   ⇌   E-C   ⇌

This kind of list differs from the standard "traditional" XOR linked list in that the instruction sequences needed to traverse the list forwards is different from the sequence needed to traverse the list in reverse. The address of the next node, going forwards, is given by adding the link field to the previous node's address; the address of the preceding node is given by subtracting the link field from the next node's address.

The subtraction linked list is also special in that the entire list can be relocated in memory without needing any patching of pointer values, since adding a constant offset to each address in the list will not require any changes to the values stored in the link fields. (See also serialization.) This is an advantage over both XOR linked lists and traditional linked lists.

Binary search tree
The XOR linked list concept can be generalized to XOR binary search trees.

title: XOR linked list


text:
Southern Netherlands

The Southern Netherlands, also called the Catholic Netherlands, were the parts of the Low Countries belonging to the Holy Roman Empire which were at first largely controlled by Habsburg Spain (Spanish Netherlands, 1556–1714) and later by the Austrian Habsburgs (Austrian Netherlands, 1714–1794) until occupied and annexed by Revolutionary France (1794–1815).

The region also included a number of smaller states that were never ruled by Spain or Austria: the Prince-Bishopric of Liège, the Imperial Abbey of Stavelot-Malmedy, the County of Bouillon, the County of Horne and the Princely Abbey of Thorn.

The Southern Netherlands comprised most of modern-day Belgium and Luxembourg, small parts of the modern Netherlands and Germany (the Upper Guelders region, as well as the Bitburg area in Germany, then part of Luxembourg), in addition to (until 1678) most of the present Nord-Pas-de-Calais region, and Longwy area in northern France. The (southern) Upper Guelders region consisted of what is now divided between Germany and the modern Dutch Province of Limburg (in 1713 largely ceded to Prussia).

Place in the broader Netherlands

As they were very wealthy, the Netherlands in general were an important territory of the Habsburg crown which also ruled Spain and Austria among other places. But unlike the other Habsburg dominions, they were led by a merchant class. It was the merchant economy which made them wealthy, and the Habsburg attempts at increasing taxation to finance their wars was a major factor in the Dutch (merchants') efforts to defend their privileges. This, added to resistance to penal laws enforced by the Habsburg monarchy that made heresy a capital crime, led to a general rebellion of the Netherlands against Habsburg rule towards 1570 (protests and hostilities started the Dutch Eighty Years' War for independence c. 1566–1568). Although the northern seven provinces, led by Holland and Zeeland, established their independence as the United Provinces after 1581, the ten southern Netherlands were reconquered by the Spanish general Alexander Farnese, Duke of Parma. Liège, Stavelot-Malmédy and Bouillon maintained their independence.

The Habsburg Netherlands passed to the Austrian Habsburgs after the War of the Spanish Succession in 1714. Under Austrian rule, the ten provinces' defence of their privileges proved as troublesome to the reforming Emperor Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor as it had to his ancestor Philip II two centuries earlier, leading to a major rebellion in 1789–1790. The Austrian Netherlands were ultimately lost to the French Revolutionary armies, and annexed to France in 1794. Following the war, Austria's loss of the territories was confirmed, and they were joined with the northern Netherlands as a single kingdom under the House of Orange at the 1815 Congress of Vienna. The southeastern third of Luxembourg Province was made into the autonomous Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, because it was claimed by both the Netherlands and Prussia.

In 1830 the predominantly Roman Catholic southern half became independent as the Kingdom of Belgium (the northern half being predominantly Calvinist). In 1839 the final border between the kingdom of the Netherlands and Belgium was determined and the eastern part of Limburg returned to the Netherlands as the province of Limburg. The autonomy of Luxembourg was recognised in 1839, but an instrument to that effect was not signed until 1867. The King of the Netherlands was Grand Duke of Luxembourg until 1890, when William III was succeeded by his daughter, Wilhelmina of the Netherlands – but Luxembourg still followed the Salic law at the time, which forbade a woman to rule in her own right; so the union of the Dutch and Luxembourgish crowns then ended. The northwestern two-thirds of the original Luxembourg remains a province of Belgium.

Spanish Netherlands

The Spanish Netherlands (Dutch: Spaanse Nederlanden, Spanish: Países Bajos españoles) was a portion of the Low Countries controlled by Spain from 1556 to 1714, inherited from the Dukes of Burgundy. Although the territory of the Duchy of Burgundy itself remained in the hands of France, the Habsburgs remained in control of the title of Duke of Burgundy and the other parts of the Burgundian inheritance, notably the Low Countries and the Free County of Burgundy in the Holy Roman Empire. They often used the term Burgundy to refer to it (e.g. in the name of the Imperial Circle it was grouped into), until 1794, when the Austrian Netherlands were lost to the French Republic.

When part of the Netherlands separated from Spanish rule and became the United Provinces in 1581 the remainder of the area became known as the Spanish Netherlands and remained under Spanish control. This region comprised modern Belgium, Luxembourg as well as part of northern France.

The Spanish Netherlands originally consisted of:
 * County of Flanders, including Walloon Flanders
 * County of Artois
 * City of Tournai
 * Cambrai (roughly the département Nord and the northern half of Pas-de-Calais in modern France)
 * Duchy of Luxembourg
 * Duchy of Limburg
 * County of Hainaut
 * County of Namur
 * Lordship of Mechelen (officially a county since 1490)
 * Duchy of Brabant, including the Margraviate of Antwerp
 * the Upper Quarter (Bovenkwartier) of the duchy of Guelders (around Venlo and Roermond, in the present province of Dutch Limburg, and the town of Geldern in the present German district Kleve)

The capital, Brussels, was in Brabant. In the early 17th century, there was a flourishing court at Brussels, which was under the government of King Philip III's half-sister Archduchess Isabella and her husband, Archduke Albert of Austria. Among the artists who emerged from the court of the "Archdukes", as they were known, was Peter Paul Rubens. Under the Archdukes, the Spanish Netherlands actually had formal independence from Spain, but always remained unofficially within the Spanish sphere of influence, and with Albert's death in 1621 they returned to formal Spanish control, although the childless Isabella remained on as Governor until her death in 1633.

The failing wars intended to regain the 'heretical' northern Netherlands meant significant loss of (still mainly Catholic) territories in the north, which was consolidated in 1648 in the Peace of Westphalia, and given the peculiar, inferior status of Generality Lands (jointly ruled by the United Republic, not admitted as member provinces): Zeelandic Flanders (south of the river Scheldt), the present Dutch province of North Brabant and Maastricht (in the present Dutch province of Limburg).

As Spanish power waned in the latter decades of the 17th century, the territory of the Spanish Netherlands was repeatedly invaded by the French and an increasing portion of the territory came under French control in successive wars. By the Treaty of the Pyrenees of 1659 the French annexed Artois while Dunkirk was ceded to the English. By the Treaties of Aix-la-Chapelle (ending the War of Devolution in 1668) and Nijmegen (ending the Franco-Dutch War in 1678), further territory up to the current Franco-Belgian border was ceded, including Cambrai, Walloon Flanders (the area around Lille, Douai and Orchies), as well as half of the county of Hainaut (including Valenciennes). Later, in the War of the Reunions and the Nine Years' War, France temporarily annexed other parts of the region that were returned in the 1697 Peace of Ryswick.

Austrian Netherlands

Under the Treaty of Rastatt (1714), following the War of the Spanish Succession, what was left of the Spanish Netherlands was ceded to Austria and thus became known as the Austrian Netherlands or Belgium Austriacum. However, the Austrians themselves generally had little interest in the region (aside from a short-lived attempt by Emperor Charles VI to compete with British and Dutch trade through the Ostend Company), and the fortresses along the border (the Barrier Fortresses) were, by treaty, garrisoned with Dutch troops. The area had, in fact, been given to Austria largely at British and Dutch insistence, as these powers feared potential French domination of the region.

Throughout the latter part of the eighteenth century, the principal foreign policy goal of the Habsburg rulers was to exchange the Austrian Netherlands for Bavaria, which would round out Habsburg possessions in southern Germany. In the 1757 Treaty of Versailles, Austria agreed to the creation of an independent state in the Southern Netherlands ruled by Philip, Duke of Parma and garrisoned by French troops in exchange for French help in recovering Silesia. However the agreement was unimplemented and revoked by the Third Treaty of Versailles (1785) and Austrian rule continued.

In 1784, its ruler, Emperor Joseph II, took up the long-standing grudge of Antwerp, whose once-flourishing trade was destroyed by the permanent closing of the Scheldt, and he demanded for the Dutch Republic to open the river to navigation. However, his stance was far from militant, and he called off hostilities after the so-called Kettle War, so called because its only "casualty" was a kettle. Though Joseph secured in the 1785 Treaty of Fontainebleau that the territory's rulers would be compensated by the Dutch Republic for the continued closing the Scheldt, this failed to gain him much popularity.

The people of the Austrian Netherlands rebelled against Austria in 1788 as a result of Joseph II's centralizing policies. The different provinces established the United States of Belgium (January 1790). However, waylaying Joseph's intended concessions to the Belgians to restore the height of their autonomy and privileges, Austrian imperial power had been restored by Joseph's brother and successor, Leopold II, by the end of 1790.

French annexation
In the course of the French Revolution, the entire region (including territories that were never under Habsburg rule, like the Prince-Bishopric of Liège) was overrun by French armies after they won the Battle of Sprimont in 1794. The territory was then annexed to the Republic (October 1, 1795).

Only a minority of the population – mostly the local Jacobins and other members of "Societies of Friends of Liberty and Equality" in urban areas – supported the annexation. The majority were hostile to the French regime, above all because of the imposition of the assignat, wholesale conscription, and the ferocious antireligious policies of the French revolutionaries. The opposition was first led by the Catholic clergy, which became an irreducible enemy of the French Republic after it dissolved convents and monasteries and confiscated ecclesiastical properties, ordered the separation of Church and State, shut down the University of Louvain and other Catholic educational institutions, regulated church attendance and introduced divorce. In 1797, nearly 8000 priests refused to swear the newly introduced Oath of Hatred of Kings ("serment de haine à la royauté"), and went into hiding to escape arrest and deportation. The situation, particularly in the religious field, eased with the rise to power of Bonaparte in 1799, but soon, the intensification of conscription, the police state and the Continental System, which brought ruin to Ostend and Antwerp, reignited opposition to French rule. During that period Belgium was divided into nine départements: Deux-Nèthes, Dyle, Escaut, Forêts, Jemmape, Lys, Meuse-Inférieure, Ourthe and Sambre-et-Meuse.

Austria confirmed the loss of its territories by the Treaty of Campo Formio, in 1797.

In anticipation of Napoleon's defeat in 1814, it was hotly debated inside Austrian ruling circles whether Austria should get the Southern Netherlands back or, in view of the experience gained after the War of the Spanish Succession about the difficulty of defending non contiguous possessions, whether she should not instead obtain contiguous territorial compensations in Northern Italy. This latter viewpoint won and the Congress of Vienna allotted the Southern Netherlands to the new United Kingdom of the Netherlands. After the Belgian Revolution of 1830, the region separated to become the independent Kingdom of Belgium.

title: Southern Netherlands


text:
RATP Group

The RATP Group (Groupe RATP), is a French state-owned enterprise (EPIC) that operates public transport systems. It is headquartered in Paris, France, and originally operated under the name Régie autonome des transports parisiens (Parisian Autonomous Transport Administration). Its logo represents, in a stylized version, the Seine's meandering through the Paris area as the face of a person looking up. The company had described itself as the fourth-largest presence in public transport.

RATP Group was established in 1949 with the express purpose of operating Paris' public transport system. During the twentieth century, it focused solely on the provision of the capital's various forms of transit, from the Paris Métro, Île-de-France tram, and the RATP bus network, as well as part of the regional express rail (RER) network. However, since 2002, RATP Group's operations have no longer been geographically restricted; it has competitively pursued contracts to operate transit systems around the world. It also had a partnership with, and a minority shareholding in, Transdev, which has further involved RATP Group in various global transport operations. During 2002, RATP Dev was created as the Group's dedicated international operations and maintenance subsidiary; it is present in 16 countries across Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe and North America.

RATP Group's Paris-related activities are still a major part of its business through to the present day; in 2019, it was recorded that, in the Île-de-France region, it carried roughly 3.3 billion passengers per year. In 2019, RATP Group's consolidated revenue was €5.704 billion; it employed 64,000 people at that time. In recent decades, the company has operated on an increasingly competitive basis as a result of legislative changes.

History
The RATP was created on 1 January 1949 by combining the assets of the Compagnie du Chemin de fer Métropolitain de Paris (CMP), which operated the Paris Métro, and the Société des Transports en Commun de la Région Parisienne (STCRP), which operated the city's bus system.

Prior to this, the CMP had absorbed the Nord-Sud Company in 1930 and the Ligne de Sceaux in 1937, which operated commuter rail to the suburbs. The STCRP had been created on 1 January 1921 by the merger of about half a dozen independent bus and streetcar operators in the Paris area. By the time the STCRP was merged into the RATP, all of its streetcars had been replaced by bus routes.

Shift towards competitive operations
A major change in French law came on 3 November 2009, when article 5 of the ARAF (French rail regulatory body) law came into effect. This law opens public transport operation to competition. The law was part of a broader push by the European Union to open all passenger transport operation to competition. Under this law, the RATP Group lost the exclusive right to operate all new public transport lines immediately. The company's exclusive operation rights for existing lines would expire over time, with the bus network going out to bid 15 years later in 2024, the tram network (Lines T1, T2 & T3) going out to bid 20 years later in 2029, and the Metro and RER lines out to bid 30 years later in 2039.

With the RATP anticipating this shift to a competitive environment, the company began to reorganize itself.

In the early years of the 21st century, a partnership with Transdev resulted in RATP acquiring a minority shareholding in that group, with its many worldwide transport operations. However, in 2009, the Caisse des dépôts et consignations, the majority owner of the Transdev, started negotiations with Veolia to merge Transdev with Veolia Transport. As part of the resulting agreement, made in May 2010, it was agreed that RATP would take over ownership of some of Transdev's operations in lieu of cash payment for its holdings in Transdev. This gave RATP a considerable number of international operations.

In 2009, RATP entered the United States by purchasing transit contractor McDonald Transit Associates. McDonald operated Fort Worth Transportation Authority (now Trinity Metro) in Texas, Votran in Florida, and Waco Transit System in Texas, among others. On 1 August 2011, the RATP Group purchased Stagecoach Metrolink's contract to operate the Metrolink light rail system in Greater Manchester, England until July 2017. Two years later, in 2013, RATP purchased the nearby long-established coach company, Selwyns Travel, a National Express operator.

Presidents
The current president and CEO of the RATP, Jean Castex, is in office since 28 November 2022.

Hiba Farès is the Chairman of the Board of RATP Dev since January 2022.

Operations in Paris
In Paris, RATP operates, under its own name, on behalf of and under contract with Île-de-France Mobilités (IDFM), the Paris region transit authority. RATP's services constitute, in their own right, a multi-mode public transportation infrastructure, but also contribute to a larger multi-mode system extending out into the surrounding Île-de-France communities.

RATP's services in the Greater Paris area include:
 * The Paris Métro, a system of mostly underground rapid transit lines which run throughout the city, with some lines extending somewhat beyond the city boundaries. The Métro has 16 lines with 226.9 km of track and 308 stations. Two metro lines are fully automated and driverless: Line 1 (since 2012), Line 4 (since 2023) and Line 14 (since its opening in 1998).
 * Orlyval, the automated shuttle serving Orly Airport.
 * Parts of the RER, the Paris regional express rail network that runs mostly underground in the centre of Paris and overground in the rest of the region. RATP owns and operates most of lines A and B, both together representing approximately 115 km and 66 stations. The rest of the RER network is operated by SNCF.
 * Nine out of the fourteen lines of the Paris tram system (T1, T2, T3a, T3b, T5, T6, T7, T8, T10) totaling 109.6 km and 197 stops.
 * The extensive Paris city bus system (351 lines with a total length of 3861 km), including the night buses of the Noctilien network.
 * Two BRT lines: the Trans-Val-de-Marne (TVM, 19.7 km) and line 393 (11.7 km).
 * The Montmartre funicular.

Paris bus route 341 was RATP's first line equipped with 100% electric full-size buses (starting June 2016). By early 2021, there were over 150 full battery electric buses in the fleet with a target of 1,500 by 2025.

Operations outside Paris
RATP Dev (Dev being a contraction of Développement, French for development ), established in 2002 as a 100% subsidiary of the RATP Group, provides operations and maintenance of passenger transport services outside of the "historical" RATP network in the Greater Paris area although it also operates some specialised services within Paris. RATP Dev is present in France as well as in 15 other countries, namely Algeria, Australia, Belgium, Egypt, Hong Kong, Italy, Morocco, the Philippines, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Serbia, South Africa, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Wholly and partly owned operations include the following:

Heavy rail

 * Future CDG Express, express rail link between Paris Gare de l'Est and Charles de Gaulle Airport (in the Hello Paris joint venture with Keolis)

Other modes

 * Agglobus, the network of Bourges in the Cher department (since 2011, renewed for the 2017–2022 period, and again renewed for the 2023-2030 period)
 * ALPBUS, operating various school, shuttle and coach services as well as fixed routes services including, among others, the bus network serving Cluses and cross-border services between France and Switzerland with routes connecting Annecy, Thonon-les-Bains and Sallanches with Geneva Airport
 * The Bibus multimodal network in and around Brest including the Brest tramway and Brest cable car, in the Finistère department (for the 2019-2027 period)
 * Cars Jacquemard, a coach operator in the Eure department
 * Cars Perrier, one of the operators of the Sqybus network serving the Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines suburb near Paris
 * The CTRL network of Lorient Agglomération in the Morbihan department (for the 2018-2022 period)
 * Com'Bus, Yvelines and Val-d'Oise departments
 * The Impulsyon network of La Roche-sur-Yon in the Vendée department (since 2010, renewed for the 2017–2023 period)
 * The Irigo multimodal in and around Angers including the Angers tramway (for the 2019-2025 period)
 * The Kicéo network of Vannes in the Morbihan department (for the 2017-2023 period)
 * Lignes de Vienne et agglomération (L'va) in and around Vienne in the Isère department (since 2011)
 * Le Vib in Vierzon in the Cher department (since 2011, renewed in 2015 for 8 more years)
 * The Marinéo network of Boulogne-sur-Mer in the Pas-de-Calais department (since 2013, renewed in 2021 for another 6 years)
 * The Mistral network of Métropole Toulon Provence Méditerranée area in the Var department
 * Mouvéo, the network of Épernay in the Marne department (since 2016)
 * Ondéa, the network of Aix-les-Bains and its surroundings in the Savoie department (since 2014, renewed in 2021 for another 7 years)
 * "RIO 4", regional and school bus services in the Oise department (since 2021)
 * TAAM, paratransit in and around Amiens in the Somme department (since 2021)
 * Transports annemassiens collectifs (TAC), the network covering the Agglomeration community of Annemasse – Les Voirons (joint control with TPG)
 * Transports de l'agglomération de Charleville-Mézières (TAC), the network of Charleville-Mézières and Sedan in the Ardennes department (since 2012, renewed for the 2017–2024 period)
 * TBK bus and coach network covering Quimperlé and surroundings in the Finistère department (for the 2020-2028 period)
 * Transports urbains laonnois (TUL), the network of Laon in the Aisne department (since 2016, renewed for the 2023–2029)
 * Transports urbains lavallois (TUL), the network of Laval in the Mayenne department (for the 2023-2031 period)
 * Transports en Commun Lyonnais (TCL), the operation and maintenance of rolling stock, infrastructure upkeep and safety on the TCL network (from January 2025 and for a period of 10 years).

Other activities
In December 2022, RATP Dev launches hydrogen training center in La Roche-sur-Yon.

In June 2024, RATP partnered with Wabtec to equip all its RER A trains with a new brake lining that eliminates 70-90% of the health-damaging fine particles found on platforms. Similar tests are being carried out on some metro lines. The same year, RATP and Île-de-France Mobilités signed an accessibility charter to make it easier for blind and partially-sighted people to travel on Île-de-France's transport network.

Heavy rail

 * Gautrain, regional express train in Gauteng province, South Africa, linking Johannesburg, Pretoria and O. R. Tambo International Airport (since 2010)
 * "La Ferroviaria Italiana", two regional rail lines in Tuscany, Italy (minority share)
 * Cairo-New Cairo railway, regional rail service between Cairo and the new administrative capital of Egypt (since 2022)

Metro and tramway

 * Tramway networks in the Algerian cities of Algiers (since 2012), Oran (since 2013), Constantine (since 2013), Sidi Bel Abbès (since 2017), Ouargla (since 2018) and Sétif (since 2018)
 * Future Sydney Metro Western Sydney Airport, Australia (15 years of operations and maintenance starting 2026)
 * Cairo Metro Line 3, Cairo, Egypt (for the 2020-2035 period)
 * DC Streetcar, Washington, D.C., United States (since 2016)
 * Florence tramway, Florence, Italy (since 2010)
 * Casablanca LRT, Casablanca, Morocco (since 2012, contract renewed in 2017 until the end of 2029)
 * Hong Kong Tramways, Hong Kong (since 2009)
 * Manila Line 1, Manila, Philippines (technical assistance, since 2014)
 * MATA Trolley, Memphis, Tennessee, United States (since 2021)
 * Sun Link Streetcar, Tucson, Arizona, United States (since 2013, renewed in 2019)
 * Doha Metro and Lusail LRT, Qatar (20-year contract through RKH Qitarat, joint venture formed by Hamad Group (51%) and Keolis-RATP Dev (49%))
 * Future Riyadh Metro Lines 1 and 2 (12-year contract)

Italy

 * Tuscany regional bus network including 4,800 employees, 2,700 vehicles and 57 depots, via the Autolinee Toscane subsidiary (since 1 November 2021, for a duration of 11 years)
 * Cilia Italia, Lazio

United Kingdom
RATP Dev's presence in the United Kingdom is mainly concentrated in London with its portfolio of bus services on behalf of Transport for London. Through its three subsidiaries London United, Quality Line (acquired as Epsom Coaches in April 2012) and London Sovereign (acquired in April 2014), RATP Dev manages 1129 vehicles on 96 routes out of 10 garages, and has 3387 employees, as of 2020. Early 2021, RATP Dev announced that it is to close its Quality Line subsidiary and Epsom depot. The closure was effective as of July 2021.

On 16 June 2021, the firm announced it had placed an order for 195 electric buses for its London operations to be delivered jointly by Alexander Dennis and BYD Auto, the by then largest ever full battery electric bus order in the UK.

On 22 September 2021, RATP Dev and SeaLink Travel Group (now Kelsian Group) announced that their respective West London bus operations (including London United, London Sovereign and Tower Transit's Westbourne Park garage) would merge into a new joint venture called RATP Dev Transit London, with RATP Dev holding 87.5% of shares and SeaLink 12.5%. The incorporation of the joint venture was finalised on 11 December 2021. Tower Transit's Lea Interchange garage, located in East London, was not part of the joint venture and remained unaffected until sold off separately to Stagecoach London.

Outside of London, RATP Dev manages, since 2011, the Air Decker, a bus service operated by Bath Bus Company connecting Bristol Airport with Bath.

United States

RATP operates various transit systems in the United States under the name RATP Dev USA:

 * Arlington Entertainment Area Management District Trolley, Arlington, Texas
 * Asheville Rides Transit (ART), North Carolina (since 2017)
 * Augusta, Georgia (since 2013)
 * Bloomington Transit, Indiana
 * Bowling Green, Kentucky (since 2020)
 * Mountain Mobility, Buncombe County, North Carolina (paratransit, since 2011, renewed in 2020)
 * Camarillo Area Transit, California (since 2018)
 * Charlotte Area Transit System, North Carolina (bus only)
 * Citibus, Lubbock, Texas
 * Citylink Edmond, Oklahoma (since 2014)
 * City of Lompoc Transit, California (since 2018)
 * City of Ocala SunTran, Marion County, Florida
 * The COMET, South Carolina (since 2020)
 * Hartford, New Haven, and Stamford Divisions of CTtransit, Connecticut (management contract since 2023)
 * DC Circulator, Washington, D.C. (six routes and 72 vehicles, since 2018)
 * GoDurham, Durham, North Carolina (since 2023)
 * GoRaleigh and GoRaleigh Access, Raleigh, North Carolina (since 2023)
 * Greensboro Transit Authority, Greensboro, North Carolina (since 2022)
 * IndyGo, Indianapolis, Indiana (paratransit only, since 2021)
 * LakeXpress, Lake County, Florida (seven fixed routes, paratransit and 54 vehicles, management contract since 2017)
 * Lextran Wheels Paratransit, Lexington, Kentucky (since 2022)
 * Oxford-University Transit, Oxford, Mississippi
 * Memphis Area Transit Authority, Memphis, Tennessee (since 2021)
 * Needles Area Transit, California
 * Santa Maria Area Transit (SMAT), Santa Maria, California, U.S. (management contract since 2018)
 * THE Bus, Hernando County, Florida
 * TheBus, Prince George's County, Maryland (since 2020)
 * Trinity Metro, Fort Worth, Texas
 * VCTC Intercity, California (since 2018)
 * Wake County, North Carolina (since 2023)
 * Waco Transit System, Waco, Texas
 * Yuma County Area Transit, Yuma, Arizona (since 2018)
 * Zion National Park, Utah, shuttle system (since 2000, renewed in 2020)

Saudi Arabia

 * All of Riyadh's urban bus network which will progressively grow to about 100 lines and 1,000 vehicles over three depots.  RATP Dev and its Saudi Arabian partner SAPTCO have established the network since 2014 and launched revenue service in March 2023
 * Autonomous shuttles in Al-'Ula, on behalf of the Royal Commission for Al-'Ula (since 2022)

Switzerland

 * HelveCié, operating various school, shuttle and coach services in the cantons of Fribourg, Geneva, Neuchâtel and Vaud
 * Various bus and coach services as subcontractor to Geneva's transit operator TPG
 * Cross-border services between Switzerland and France including services connecting Annecy, Thonon-les-Bains et de Sallanches with Geneva Airport

Basque Country

 * RATP Dev operates the coastal zone, and Transdev will handle the retro-coastal zone in association with local transport company Hiruak Bat (since 2024).

Tootbus
RATP Dev operates hop-on hop-off tours using double-decker buses under the Tootbus brand in several cities:
 * Tootbus Paris (formerly "Paris L'OpenTour")
 * Tootbus London (formerly The Original Tour, acquired in September 2014)
 * Tootbus Bath operated by Bath Bus Company in Bath, Cardiff, Eastbourne and Windsor
 * Tootbus Brussels (since November 2021 with up to 12 fully battery-electric vehicles, as part of an eight-year concession granted by STIB)

Other
Since 2013, RATP Dev, in a consortium with TPG and Pomagalski, manages the Salève cable car, in the French Alps. Ridership of the cable car has increased by 50% since 2013, notably after the introduction of shuttle buses from Annemasse and Saint-Julien-en-Genevois. The contract of the RATP Dev-led consortium has been renewed in 2019 for 12 additional years, until 2031.

RATP Dev established in 2018 a "regional office" in Singapore for Asia-Pacific albeit not having any operational activity in the city-state. In December 2020, RATP Dev and SBS Transit announced a partnership for future rail projects in Singapore, without referencing specific commercial targets. RATP Dev and SBS Transit are expected to bid for operations and maintenance of the future Jurong Region MRT line and the future Cross Island MRT line.

In September 2020, RATP Dev announces a partnership with Getlink to jointly bid under the "Régionéo" brand name for regional rail services in France which will gradually opened to competitive tendering.

In February 2023, Sepulveda Transit Corridor Partners (STCP), one of the two private sector teams executing the project development agreement with the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority for the future Sepulveda Transit Corridor, announced to have selected RATP Dev as its operations and maintenance partner.

Former operations
 (selection / non comprehensive list)
 * Algiers Metro (from 1 November 2011 to 31 October 2020)
 * São Paulo Metro Line 4: technical assistance for start-up and the launch of commercial operations in 2010 and 1% share in the concessionnaire ViaQuatro until 2015
 * Rio de Janeiro Light Rail: technical assistance for start-up and the launch of commercial operations in 2016
 * Anqing Zhongbei buses in Anqing, China (as part of RDTA from 2008 to ?)
 * Shenyang trams (as part of RDTA from 2013 to ?)
 * Line 9 of the Seoul Metropolitan Subway (as part of RDTA from 2009 to 2019)
 * Line 1 of the Mumbai Metro (as part of RDTA from 2014 to 2019)
 * Aléo, the urban bus network of Moulins in the Allier department (from 2012 to 2019)
 * STI Allier et STI Nièvre, France (ceased to Prêt à Partir in 2018)
 * The Transvilles multimodal network in and around Valenciennes, including the Valenciennes tramway (from 2015 to the end of 2022)
 * Manchester Metrolink (from August 2011 to July 2017)
 * Selwyns Travel: coach operator with 92 vehicles based in Manchester, Runcorn and St Helens, England (acquired in 2013 and sold in 2020).
 * "Slide", an on-demand shared transport / microtransit service targeting commuters in Bristol, England (from July 2016 to December 2018, in partnership with French start-up Padam)
 * "Slide Ealing" in London (from November 2019 to mid-2020, in partnership with MOIA)
 * Yellow Buses, a bus operator in Bournemouth, England (from 2011 to July 2019).
 * Fullington Auto Bus Company, State College, Pennsylvania, U.S.: acquired in 2009 and sold in 2017
 * Open Loop New York: hop on hop off tour company in New York City commenced in May 2014, ceded to Big Bus Tours in 2017
 * Capital MetroBus in Austin, Texas: 79 routes, 250 buses, 21 million passengers/year, from 2012 to early 2020.
 * Votran in Volusia County, Florida (until 2020)
 * Mountain Metropolitan Transit, Colorado Springs, Colorado (until early 2023)

title: RATP Group


text:
Talk:RATP Group

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 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20110307123507/http://www.transdev.eu/Website/dynamic/actus.php?LANGUAGE=eng&actu=66 to http://www.transdev.eu/Website/dynamic/actus.php?LANGUAGE=eng&actu=66
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 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20130927194628/http://www.busandcoach.com/newspage.aspx?id=6680&categoryid=0 to http://www.busandcoach.com/newspage.aspx?id=6680&categoryid=0
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20160304091815/http://www.ratp.fr/en/ratp/r_116937/ratp-dev-acquires-leading-london-sightseeing-operator/ to http://www.ratp.fr/en/ratp/r_116937/ratp-dev-acquires-leading-london-sightseeing-operator/

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Proposed merge with Selwyns Travel
the article has limited information as standalone and it is pertinent to rather have a section in the main article instead of current shape Devopam (talk) 05:46, 2 August 2018 (UTC)
 * I've made negative experiences with mergers. It forces you to respect very strict copyright measures etc. I will integrate content from Selwyns Travel into RATP Group and then suggest to launch a deletion procedure for Selwyns Travel --Fmjwiki (talk) 09:53, 7 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Oppose, has only been a RATP subsidiary for 5 out of its 50 years. Irnbru26 (talk) 18:14, 8 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Well that's true but the question is if Selwyns Travel meets the criteria for justifying a Wikipedia entry. If yes, then everything shall remain as it is. If not, then we can delete Selwyns Travel. A deletion procedure provides the forum for such a debate --Fmjwiki (talk) 08:23, 9 August 2018 (UTC)
 * So, what's the way forward? --Fmjwiki (talk) 13:27, 9 January 2019 (UTC)
 * I will remove the banners and leave things as they are right now --Fmjwiki (talk) 13:00, 21 January 2019 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion
The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion: Participate in the deletion discussion at the. —Community Tech bot (talk) 11:38, 17 May 2020 (UTC)
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title: Talk:RATP Group


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User talk:Manfear

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