Bussy-Saint-Georges: Information from Answers.com

In the East, at the distance 30 kilometres from Paris and in the heart of Marne-la-Vallée, Bussy Saint-Georges has a privileged position thanks to a high-density motorway network. From Bussy, the direct access to the A4 motorway and the nearby A104 offer easy access to the whole country.

With easy access to the RER line , close to the TGV railway station of Chessy-Marne-la-Vallée and two international airports Roissy-Charles-de-Gaulle and Orly, the city has a central position in the transport network.

Population

Demography

1962	1968	1975	1982	1990	1999	2006
453	462	441	456	1,545	9,194	19,027

Starting in 1962: Population without duplicates

The city has benefited from one of the most significant growths in France. The population has multiplied by 11 in 15 years, between 1990 and 2005. In the period 1999-2005, the growth rate was 30,7% per year, and it is still continuing. Predictions for 2010 indicate that the city will reach a population of 22,000 inhabitants.

Bussy Saint-Georges has a strong power of attraction on young dynamic families who wish to live in a comfortable environment where the quality of life has been mixed with an intelligent urbanization and a large set of services for the population. 50% of the Buxangeorgiens are less than 30 years old.

Transports

In the center of the city, there is the Bussy Saint-Georges station of the RER line . There is also a bus network ("Pep’s").

Surrounding towns

Bussy-Saint-Martin
Chanteloup-en-Brie
Collégien
Favières
Ferrières-en-Brie
Guermantes
Jossigny
Pontcarré

City facilities

Bussy Saint-Georges also has:

9 primary schools
4 high schools
2 middle schools
capacity of 200 young children in day-care centers
an artistic conservatoire
a city library
an international golf area covering 750,000 square metres.

Sport facilities

Michel-Jazy Sport Complex, rue du cimetière: dance room, gymnastic structures, tennis courts, martial art areas, volley-ball area…
Maurice-Herzog Sport Complex, boulevard des Genêts: athletics training tracks, football space, archery practicing area, gymnastic room, climbing wall, table tennis room …
Tennis courts: 5 courts on the path of Deux- Châteaux, 2 outdoor courts on the golfers’ promenade, 2 outdoor courts at the Graveyard street.
Structures for sport and physical education

Bussy, city of parks and gardens

Bussy Saint-Georges has built its identity on a green model environment with parks and gardens. They represent 155 hectares of integrated green spaces, 9 kilometres of soft connecting links, 10 squares and parks in city-center, 8 pools and more than 8,200 trees today.

Special aspects

Bussy-Saint-Georges is located in the perimeter of the new city of Marne-la-Vallée as defined by the national government in 1966. But Marne-la-Vallée is just a geographical entity, precisely divided in 4 sectors. The city is in sector 3 of Marne-la-Vallée, also called Val-de-Bussy.

In Val-de-Bussy of Marne-la-Vallée, Bussy Saint-Georges is from 1985 the leading and main support of the built-up area, as a real and independent new town ("Ville nouvelle") with a unique status of local and new town. The others towns decided to be organized around a common agglomeration system of new towns.

History

In the origins, the village of Bussy appeared in 841 under the Roman name of Villa Buxido. In 855 the territory formed a large parish under the protection of Saint-Georges. Nevertheless, the full name of Bussy Saint-Georges only appeared in the XIIIth century. The name of Bussy comes from Buscus because of the city's native environment initially composed of woods and lots of groves. In the Middle Age, Bussy-Saint-Martin et Bussy Saint-Georges was unified under a unique landlord authority, the lords of Bussy. Here is the list of the successive lords of Bussy:

De Buci family from 1196 to 1490;
De la Rosque from 1490 to the end of the 16th century;
Louis Guibert and his heirs from the end of the 16th century to the beginning of the 18th century;
In the beginning of the 18th century until the French Revolution, the family of Pondre, lord of Guermantes.

In 1789, Bussy Saint-Georges was under the authority of the Généralité of Paris.

During the 19th century, the town was in the county of Lagny, with a population from 500 to 550 inhabitants. Two ordinances, 6 June 1826 and 15 August 1827 reduced the territory of Bussy in favour of the territories of Ferrières and Jossigny.

Since 1985, Bussy Saint-Georges has been integrated in the perimeter of the new town plan of Marne-la-Vallée and received a total of 180.50 hectares as additional territories coming from the nearest towns (Bussy-Saint-Martin, Collégien, Ferrières).

Heraldry and city logos

Among the descendants of the knight Pierre de Bucy, lord of old Bussy and Jossigny from 1196 to 1241, there are several Simon de Bucy. The fourth one was first a knight and then became a nobleman in 1355. He became the first president of the Paris Parliament and royal counsellor of King John II the Good. At the same time he determined the first emblem. The blazon is still preserved by the National Library of France. It seems that its drawing is due to the great grandfather of Simon de Bucy who was inspired by the family Briard region origins.

The blazon can be described as following: "blason d’azur et de bande d’or chargé de trois aigles au vol abaissé de sable sur fond diapré" (blazon of azure with large golden stripes, three approaching low flying eagles with sand motif on a variegated ground).

The city emblem appeared in 1975 in an official document. It was a black ground shield. Inside, there was the tower of Bussy as a testimony of the past. In its middle, there is a knight head piece with white flairs. On the upper part of the emblem Bussy Saint-Georges is inscribed.

Then, in January 1986, the blazon slightly changed replacing the black ground with a blue one and the inscription disappeared. The new urbanization of the city motivated the change of emblem for a modern logo. The city council determined the final version on February 1986. The escutcheon now has an avionic form with a large vertical stripe with sharp edges. The irregular diamond logo form has been replaced by a reversed square, suggesting more stability and strictness. The gradation of color used symbolizes the future progress. The first public use was for the creation of «les Violennes» school.

In 2007, the city decided to perfect the logo's visual effect, in particular the inscription of the city’s name. The architecture drawing of the City hall façade, was redesigned: the front door, the corner stones chains, windows, roof and a small bell tower, but respecting the true proportions.

The city-edited documents used several styles for writing "Bussy Saint-Georges". There was an absence of real choice of lettering typography. A finalized graphic model has finally been determined with the last logo version.

Administration

Bussy-Saint-Georges is in the Canton of Torcy, in the administrative département of Seine-et-Marne; its prefecture is Melun. The canton brings together 6 towns and 38,236 inhabitants. Before its creation in 1975, the city of Bussy was in the Canton of Lagny-sur-Marne, finally divided in smaller new subdivisions considering the growth of population.

Canton of Torcy is now part of the arrondissement of Torcy created in 1993. The subprefecture was opened on 1 January 2006.

This arrondissement is the least geographically extended but the most populated of the department, with 10 cantons, 43 towns representing 343,583 inhabitants.

List of mayors:

Term	Name
1949-1952	Maxime Biat
1952-1971	Jacques Macquin
1971-1973	Guy Sadaune
1973-1983	Maurice Koehl
1983-1989	Daniel Doussot
1989-1993	Dominique Blondel
1994-1998	Bernard Ménager
1998-2014	Hugues Rondeau

The town hall, built in 1850, stands in the old village, on the Place de la Mairie (Town hall square).

Patrimony

The history of Bussy-Saint-Georges and its patrimony has been researched by the Friends of History of Val-de-Bussy Association. The following information comes from a brochure explaining this history of the town, printed by the municipality in November 2001.

The tower and the castle: The tower is the only vestige of the lord’s castle of de Buci, a fortress offering a strategic refuge dominating the valleys de la Brosse and de la Gondoire, dated from 12th century. The current place de Verdun is on the previous location of the castle, which was surrounded by the ditches filled with water by the same source of a fountain which still exists in the place du marché. The graveyard, in the north of the tower, beyond the fortifications, was discovered during a private house building in 1960. The tower is 21 meters high and 9 meters large.
The Farm of Roquemont: In the village, the farm of Roquemont took its name from la Rosque’s fief, Bussy Saint-Georges lords from 1490 to 1594; it was also the main source of the lords for the benefit of Bussy fief. Later, the farm was called the great farm of Bussy Saint-Georges.
The Russon mill: This water mill is located in the street of de la Brosse. The former owner has restored it. The mill was a component of the outbuildings of the Farm of Roquemont. It was used as a mill only for a few months and was otherwise used as a accommodation for the farm hands.
The Wash-house: The wash-house is in the street du Moulin and was built in the middle of the XIXth century. Bussy already used a very old wash-house close to a spring in Ferrières: the wash-house of Cessoy. But it was too far from the center of the village and difficult to reach for the washerwomen who used barrows for the laundry. The city council bargained with the family de Guermantesfor to acquire land attached to another spring, in the upper side of the street du Moulin, for building the second wash-house. Currently, the wash-house of Cessoy is private, in contrast to the public one in the street du Moulin.
The Farm of Génitoy: the Farm of Génitoy is a "place mentioned in the titles as ancient as those who speak about Bussy" (Louis Michelin, 1843). The name, genesterium in Latin or genestay in Old French, became génitoire or génitoy, because of the broom Genista flower which abounded. The farm was also an important fief with a castle. In 1672, Mme de Montespan had a baby in the castle of Génitoy, one of the Louis XIV ‘s son: Louis-César de Bourbon, count of Vexin.
La Jonchère: In the beginning of the 19th century, this was a great farm. The owner was M. Martin de Longchamps, who also owned Fontenelles. It was a féculerie in 1836, which dominated all the intensive potato production in the region. Unfortunately from 1845 potato blight affected the activity and then completely stopped it. The farmers decided to replace it with sugar beet. The domaine de la Jonchère was used for establishing the installations of the new product.
L’église du village: The current church was constructed on the location of a medieval church. François de la Rosque, parish priest, member of the lord of Bussy’s family, celebrated the consecration of the church in 1580. The construction finished in 1595 and the baptism of the three bells followed on August 22, 1600: Louise, in reference to the foundation of the St-Louis chapel, Isabelle, first name of the wife of Louis Guibert, and Georges, patron saint of the parish.; The church was restored in 19th century and, at the request of the inhabitants who were disappointed for not hearing the Angélus, the bell tower was raised in 1866 to the current height of 32 meters.; The church became public property in 1905. Under the porch of the monument there is an 18th-century gravestone. It covered the body of abbot Duchesne buried in the chancel of the church. Inside, the body and the transept have a refined ogival style. The beams hold a painted vault in arch. On the right side, there is a Saint-Georges sculpture. On the left is a chapel, probably for the translation of relics in 1431, given to the parish of Bussy Saint-Georges by the abott Duchesne, restored in 1904 thanks to a group of the Visitation of the Virgin. The baptistery has a renaissance underbody and the washbowl of ceremony is decorated with four angel’s heads. We can also notice an embedded stone font on the left of the entrance.
The church of Notre-Dame du Val: The church is a modern one, built in 1997 by the architectural office Gonot-Marcenat. Fully made with modern components, the dome is in natural copper. The location is at 33, boulevard Thibaud-de-Champagne.

Culture and leisure

City Library: The Médiathèque de l’Europe was inaugurated in October 2006. In it can be found CDs, books (novels, comics, documentaries, magazines etc), DVDs, music scores…

The library also welcomes a large range of activities put in place by the cultural department of the city. Currently, the hours of opening concern the following days: Tuesday from 2pm to 7pm, Wednesday 10am – 12:30am and 2pm to 6pm, Thursday 2pm – 6pm, and Sunday 10am – 12:30am and 2pm – 6pm.

Conservatoire: The Jean-Sébastien-Bach Conservatoire of Bussy Saint-Georges opened its doors in 1995. Widened in 2004, the expanse for the reception of people was doubled. In 2006 more than 700 pupils and 45 employees were involved, 28 individual instrumental disciplines (some of these instruments are "rare" such as harpsichord, viola de gamba or traditional Chinese ones: pipa, guzheng) and 10 steel band disciplines.

Associations

Bussy Saint-Georges counted 30 sport associations, 19 cultural associations, 31 associations for leisure and 11 charities. For more information about these associations, please visit the official website of Bussy Saint-Georges city.

Festivals

All through the year, the city of Bussy Saint-Georges offers to its inhabitants a large list of celebrations:

Wishes of the Buxangeorgiens: January
Festival of Asia: February
Carnival days: March
Saint George's day: April
Journée nationale du souvenir de la déportation et ravivage de la flamme du souvenir: April
Commemoration of the end of World War II: 8 May
Antiques roadshow days: June
Commemoration for dead soldiers in French Indochina: 8 June
Commemoration of the Général de Gaulle's call: 18 June
Nation day (pyrotechnics): 13 July
Golf Open of the city: September
Forum of the associations: September
Les virades de l’Espoir (important march for the custic fibrosis cure research): September
Secondhand trade days: September
Commemoration of the Armistice in 1918: 11 November
Night of the Beaujolais : November
Commemoration for dead soldiers during the north-African wars: 5 December
Christmas Time (marché de noël, animations, patinoire): December and January.

Twin towns

Radcliffe on Trent, since 1999
Holme Pierrepont, since 1999
Kiryat Ekron
San Giuliano Milanese, [1]
Meiningen, since 2006, [2]
Sevan, since 2009^[1]
Ararat, since 2009^[2]

Economy

Within its territory, the city has an industrial region (Gustave Eiffel Park) located in the south of the city. Among the listed companies, there are Tech Data, SME Distribution (Sony), IBM, Air liquide, Asialand, BT France companies,... There are also a Senior Teaching Technical Book Center (Centre technique du livre de l'enseignement supérieur) and the Technical Center of the French National Library (Centre technique de la Bibliothèque nationale de France). The city economic growth continues with the creation of new city planning areas or Zone d’Aménagement Concerté, such as the ZAC Léonardo-de-Vinci (30 hectares) or the Rucherie (80 hectares).