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Perpignan (Municipality, Pyrénées-Orientales, France)

Perpinyà

Flags of Perpignan - Images by Olivier Touzeau, 15 January 2022

Presentation of Perpignan
Flags of Perpignan
Former flags of Perpignan
District Commissioners flag

See also:

Presentation of Perpignan

Perpignan (Catalan: Perpinyà; 118,032 inhabitants; 6,807 ha) is a commune and the prefecture of the Pyrénées-Orientales department, located at the foot of the Pyrenees a few kilometres from the Mediterranean Sea.

Though settlement in the area goes back to Roman times, the medieval town of Perpignan seems to have been founded around the beginning of the 10th century. The first mention of Perpignan appears in an act of 927. In 961 Guilabert I inherited the county of Roussillon from his father while his brother received that of Empúries (currently in Catalonia). In 991 Guilabert moved to Perpignan, transforming the city into the local capital. At that time Roussillon was only a coastal territory.
From the end of the 10th century the city experienced its boom. This success is due to the choice of the counts of Roussillon at the time (Guilabert I or his son Gausfred II) to make Perpignan their capital, which would later gain in importance, until attracting the bishop, normally residing in Elne. The count's castle, a church (consecrated in 1025) and a hospital were built there, all placed under the patronage of Saint John. In 1102, the Saint-John church (today Saint-Jean le Vieux) became a collegiate church .
In 1172 Count Girard II bequeathed his lands to the Counts of Barcelona (house of Aragon) so that the do not fall into the hands of his half-brothers whom Popes Adrian IV and Alexander III had removed from the succession by declaring them adulterine.

Perpignan acquired the institutions of a partly self-governing commune in 1197. French feudal rights over Roussillon were given up by Louis IX in the Treaty of Corbeil in 1258.
James I the Conqueror, king of Aragon and count of Barcelona, made conquests towards the East of the Kingdom of Aragon, thus propelling Perpignan to its peak for 68 years (1276-1344)
Between 1276 and 1344, Perpignan experienced its golden age; the city is then the continental capital of the kingdom of Majorca. These decades are considered the golden age in the history of the city. It prospered as a centre of cloth manufacture, leather work, goldsmiths' work, and other luxury crafts. King Philippe III of France died there in 1285, as he was returning from his unsuccessful crusade against the Aragonese Crown. It was the time of major construction sites, those of the Saint-John the Baptist cathedral and the palace of the kings of Majorca. In 1344, Perpignan lost its status as capital by the reintegration of the kingdom of Majorca into the crown of Aragon. From 1346, it was hard hit by the Black Death. The city did not recover for long.

In 1463, the French King Louis XI occupied Perpignan confirming his old rights, but the city rose against the French in 1473. After a terrible siege, which ended on February 2, 1475, the title of "Fidelíssima vila de Perpinyà" (Very faithful city of Perpignan) was awarded by the kings of Aragon.
Later, in 1493,Charles VIII of France, wishing to conciliate Castile in order to free himself to invade Italy, restored Roussillon and Cerdagne to Spain, whose unity had just be founded through the marriage between Castile and Aragon.
The Franco-Spanish rivalry and the conflicts that followed were to bring down the economy of Perpignan, endowed by Philip II, with powerful fortifications.
Perpignan was heavily fortified during and after the struggle between France and Spain for the province of Roussillon. Again besieged and captured by the French during the Thirty Years' War in September 1642, Perpignan was formally ceded by Spain 17 years later in the Treaty of the Pyrenees, and thereafter remained a French possession
The town walls were dismantled toward the end of the 19th century, but the picturesque Castillet - a 14th- and 15th-century crenellated fort that defended the principal gate - still stands and is now a museum. Nearby are the 14th- and 15th-century cathedral of Saint-Jean and the ancient Loge de Mer, a building of Catalan Gothic style built from the end of the 14th century and completed in the 16th century which was the civic center of the city, and combined the various local powers: commercial court, municipal power and palace of the deputation. In the south of the city, the bastions of the great 17th- and 18th-century citadel surround the partially restored medieval palace of the kings of Majorca
The gigantic works of Vauban were to make Perpignan a city henceforth impregnable. Augustin-Joseph de Mailly (1708-1794) was Lieutenant General, then Commander-in-Chief in Roussillon, where he initiated major works, the renewal of the university and where he played a major role in the within Catalan Freemasonry. He began, after the peace with Spain, to negotiate the rectification of borders. He concluded with Spain, in 1750, a special treaty which fixed the limits of the two kingdoms. Renovator of the urban planning of the city of the kings of Majorca, Mailly founded the first theater of Roussillon in the former Loge de Mer
Almost nothing remains of the work of Vauban because the municipality of the time decided to demolish them at the beginning of the 20th century in order to ventilate the central district and to be able to extend the city on the plain of Roussillon. Today, there remains only the Castillet, the palace of the kings of Majorca, underground passages as well as part of the spared ramparts, which testify to the time of the grandeur of Perpignan and its military installations.

During the wine revolt of 1907, the prefecture of Perpignan was stormed by winegrowers and set on fire.
Perpignan was a city of refuge in the 20th century: after 1936, for refugees from the Spanish Civil War, and for returning North African emigrants after 1960.
In 2005, scuffles broke out in the city center of Perpignan, following inter-community attacks, between gypsy and North African communities, after the murder of a 29-year-old North African lynched to death by a group of gypsies . The city was in a quasi-guerrilla state and it took several weeks to achieve a return to calm under the surveillance of several Republican Security Companies (CRS).
Perpignan is a hub for the processing and transporting of the wines, fruit, and vegetables that are cultivated on the rich plain in which it is located.

In 1993, Jean-Paul Alduy became Mayor of Perpignan without any competition after a partial election, succeeding his father who had occupied the post since 1959. Alduy was re-elected to the municipality in 1995 and 2001.
The 2008 election gave rise to heated debates, the opposition and several associations of Perpignan speaking out against the incumbent mayor's several projects, including construction of a theater by architect Jean Nouvel, and that of a new bridge over the Tet river. In the second round of voting, the list led by Alduy won with 45.5% of the vote. During the counting of the second round, the president of the polling station No. 4 (out of 66) was caught in possession of ballot papers on behalf of Alduy hidden in his socks.The exiting mayor was then re-elected by the new municipal council in a tense climate under the l eye of the national media. In October 2008, based solely on incidents of Polling Station No. 4, the Administrative Court decided to invalidate the result. Jean-Paul Alduy appealed this decision to the Council of State. In a decision dated April 23, 2009, the Supreme Administrative Court rejected the appeal, confirming the decision of the lower court
The list led by Alduy won the new municipal elections and he was re-elected by the new municipal council, announcing then that he would not be seeking a new mandate in the municipal elections of 2014. Also a senator, and the president of the Urban Community, he decided ts resign as the mayor of Perpignan in october 2009, ceding his seat to his first deputy-mayor, Jean-Marc Pujol. Jean-Paul Alduy lost his seat in the senate in 2011. In June 2020, the National Rally's Louis Aliot won the mayor election in Perpignan. It was the first time that the Marine Le Pen's party has won a city of more than 100,000 people.