Castres
Castres is the sole subprefecture of the Tarn department in the Occitanie region in Southern France. It lies in the former province of Languedoc, although not in the former region of Languedoc-Roussillon. As of 2023, the population of the commune was 42,505.
Castres is the fourth-largest industrial centre of the predominantly rural former Midi-Pyrénées region after Toulouse, Tarbes and Albi, as well as the largest in the part of Languedoc lying between Toulouse and Montpellier. It is noted for being the birthplace of the famous socialist leader Jean Jaurès and home to the important Goya Museum of Spanish painting.
Demographics
In 1831, the population of Castres was 12,032, making it the largest town of the department of Tarn. One of the few industrial towns in the region of Albigeois, the population of the commune proper grew to 19,483 in 1901, and 34,126 by 1954. However, with the decline of its industries, population growth diminished. Albi surpassed Castres as the most populous metropolitan area of Tarn. The population of Castres reached its peak in 1975, after that it has been decreasing slowly. Castres is the centre of a functional urban area with 104,695 inhabitants.Geography
Castres is located at an altitude of above sea level. It is located south-southeast of Albi, the préfecture of Tarn, and east of Toulouse, the capital of Occitania. Castres is intersected from north to south by the rivers Agout and Durenque.The Thoré forms most of the commune's south-eastern border, then flows into the Agout, which forms part of its western border.
Administration
Between 1790 and 1797 Castres was the prefecture of Tarn.Since 2001, the mayor of Castres has been Pascal Bugis, who defeated the then socialist mayor in the 2001 election after a campaign focused on the bad records of the socialist mayor on fighting crime, and the high level of insecurity in the town.
Castres has teamed up with the nearby town of Mazamet and the independent suburbs and villages in between to create the communauté d'agglomération de Castres Mazamet, which was established in December 1999. The communauté d'agglomération groups 14 independent communes, with a total population of 78,101 inhabitants, 54% of these living in the commune of Castres proper, 13% in the commune of Mazamet, and the rest in the communes in between.
The communauté d'agglomération was created in order to better coordinate transport, infrastructure, housing, and economic policies between the communes of the area. The current president of the communauté d'agglomération is Pascal Bugis, mayor of Castres.
History
The name of the town comes from Latin castrum, and means "fortified place". Castres grew up round the Benedictine abbey of Saint Benoît, which is believed to have been founded in AD 647, possibly on the site of an old Roman fort. Castres became an important stop on the international pilgrimage routes to Santiago de Compostela in Spain because its abbey-church, built in the 9th century, was keeping the relics of Saint Vincent, the renowned martyr of Spain. It was a place of some importance as early as the 12th century, and ranked as the second town of the Albigeois behind Albi. Despite the decline of its abbey, which in 1074 came under the authority of Saint Victor abbey in Marseille, Castres was granted a liberal charter in the 12th century by the famous Trencavel family, viscounts of Albi. Resulting from the charter, Castres was ruled by a college of consuls.During the Albigensian Crusade it surrendered of its own accord to Simon de Montfort, and thus entered into the kingdom of France in 1229. In 1317, Pope John XXII established the bishopric of Castres. In 1356, the town of Castres was raised to a countship by King John II of France. However, the town greatly suffered from the Black Plague in 1347-1348, then from the Black Prince of England and the Free Companies who laid waste the country during the Hundred Years' War. Consequently, by the late 14th century Castres entered a period of sharp decline. In 1375, there were only 4,000 inhabitants left in town, only half the figure from a century before. Following the confiscation of the possessions of Jacques d'Armagnac, duke of Nemours, to which the countship of Castres had passed, it was bestowed in 1476 by King Louis XI on Boffille de Juge, an Italian nobleman and adventurer serving as a diplomat for Louis XI, but the appointment led to so much disagreement that the countship was united to the crown by King Francis I in 1519.
Around 1560, the majority of the population of Castres converted to Protestantism. In the wars of the latter part of the 16th century the inhabitants sided with the Protestant party, fortified the town, and established an independent republic. Castres was one of the largest Protestant strongholds in southern France, along with Montauban and La Rochelle. Henry of Navarre, leader of the Protestant party, who later became King Henry IV of France, stayed in Castres in 1585. The Protestants of Castres were brought to terms, however, by King Louis XIII in 1629, and Richelieu came himself to Castres to have its fortifications dismantled. Nonetheless, after these religious wars, the town, now in peace, enjoyed a period of rapid expansion. Business and traditional commercial activities revived, in particular fur and leather-dressing, tanning, and above all wool trade. Culture flourished anew, with the founding of the Academy of Castres in 1648. Castres was turned by the Catholic Church into an active center of Counter-Reformation, with the establishments of several convents in town, and the building of the Palace of the Bishops of Castres by Monsignor Tubœuf, still the most famous monument in town today, completed in 1673.
A new cathedral was also built, after the destructions of the religious wars. Perhaps even more important, Castres was made the seat of the Chambre de l'Édit of the Parliament of Toulouse, a court of justice detached from the Parliament of Toulouse and in charge of dealing with the cases involving the Protestants of Languedoc, a measure of protection granted to them by the Edict of Nantes. This court attracted much business to Castres. In 1665, there were 7,000 inhabitants in Castres, 4,000 of whom Catholic, and 3,000 Protestant.
In 1670 however, the Chambre de l'Édit was transferred to Castelnaudary, much to the discontent of even the catholic citizens of Castres, who lost a major source of business and revenue with the departure of the lawyers and the plaintiffs. The Revocation of the Edict of Nantes soon followed, and Castres suffered greatly when many Protestants chose to go into exile. Then came the plague of 1720-1721 and the fire of 1724. Last but not least, Castres lost its liberal charter in 1758. In the 1760s, a few years after the famous Calas Affair in Toulouse, Castres made the headlines nationwide: Pierre-Paul Sirven and his wife, both Protestants, were wrongly accused of having murdered their daughter in order to prevent her from converting to Catholicism. Tried and sentenced to death in absentia on March 29, 1764, they were defended by Voltaire, and eventually exonerated in 1771.
The outbreak of the French Revolution was generally welcomed in Castres, particularly among the local Protestant merchants and entrepreneurs, but the majority of the population remained moderate during the whole period. In 1793 for instance, Protestant pastor Alba La Source, Castres' representative at the Convention in Paris, opposed the deportation of "non-juror" Catholic priests to French Guiana, where death in the horrid jungle was certain. "Non-juror" priests were by far the majority in the region of Castres. Accused of being a moderate, Alba La Source was guillotined in October 1793. Suspected of being lukewarm toward the revolution, Castres was duly chastised. The bishopric which had been established by Pope John XXII in 1317 was abolished, Castres later becoming part of the bishopric of Albi. Capital of the département of Tarn in 1790, the town was downgraded to capital of an arrondissement in 1797, Albi being made the capital of the département.
Despite these setbacks, in the 19th century the economy of Castres developed greatly, and the town grew outside of its old medieval center. As early as 1815, the first mechanized wool mill was set up in town. Originally specialized in luxury cloth, the Castres textile industry then turned toward more ordinary types of cloth, whose markets were considerably larger. Around 1860, there were 50 wool mills in town, employing 3,000 people. In the end of the 19th century, mechanical engineering industries appeared beside the textile industry, which led to Castres becoming a major arsenal for the French army during the First World War. Castres was linked to the French railway network in 1865. At the end of the 19th century, Castres was the largest town in the département of Tarn, with 5,000 more inhabitants than Albi.
However, in the 20th century the town entered a new period of decline. Although Castres emerged from the two world wars unscathed, no military operations or combats taking place in southwest France, the local economy has been hard hit by change. Like so many towns and cities of Europe which had benefited most from the Industrial Revolution, Castres is experiencing a difficult restructuring of its industrial base. Textile has particularly suffered. Castres is also crippled by its geographical location, isolated in a dead end at the foot of the Massif Central mountains, away from the main exchange and transport routes. Castres is still not connected to the motorway network of France, the only town of that size in France not yet connected. The creation of the Greater Castres-Mazamet Council in 2000 was expected to deal with the transport problem, and to work on attracting new industries. The good fortune of Castres is to be located only away from the very dynamic Toulouse. The long-promised motorway link with Toulouse is due to be completed soon, and Castres hopes to benefit from its proximity with the big Occitan city.