Millau

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For the cable-stayed road-bridge spanning the valley of the River Tarn near Millau see Millau Viaduct.

Coordinates: 44°05′55″N 3°04′42″E / 44.0986111111, 3.07833333333

Administration
Commune of Millau
Location

Country	France
Region	Midi-Pyrénées
Department	Aveyron
Arrondissement	Millau
Mayor	Jacques Godfrain (2001-2008)
Statistics
Elevation	340 m–888 m (avg. 379 m)
Land area^¹	168.23 km²
Population^² (1999)	21,339
- Density	126.8/km² (1999)
Miscellaneous
INSEE/Postal code	12145/ 12100
¹ French Land Register data, which excludes lakes, ponds, glaciers > 1 km² (0.386 sq mi or 247 acres) and river estuaries.
² Population sans doubles comptes: residents of multiple communes (e.g. students and military personnel) only counted once.

Millau (Occitan: Milhau) is a commune in the department of Aveyron in southern France. It is located at the confluence of the Tarn and Dourbie rivers.

By the first century AD there was a settlement on the spot, identified by Dieudonne du Rey late in the 19th century as Condatomagus, which was the major earthenware centre in the Roman Empire, La Graufesenque. This major Roman site supplied most of the best pottery right across the Roman Empire for 150 years. It was not in the centre of the town but sat on the right bank of the River Tarn half a mile away. Yet even today, with much major new development, the centre of the old Roman and medieval town on the opposite (left) bank of the Tarn remains poorly excavated, and the newly renovated Maison du Peuple, almost on the site of the old Roman forum, saw no archaeology before major mechanical excavation for recent new very deep foundations.

Surprisingly, the local museum sits almost adjacent to this site.

In the Middle Ages the town had one of the major mediaeval bridges across the River Tarn. With 17 spans, if it was still standing it would be a major monument; but one poorly maintained span fell in the 18th century and so the bridge was mostly demolished. Just one span remains, with a mill, now an art gallery, as testament to this significant trading route from north to south across pre Renaissance France.

The town is best known for its sheepskin gloves, for which it led the French fashion industry for two centuries, and most recently for the Millau viaduct, the tallest cable-stayed road bridge in the world, which carries the A75 autoroute across the valley of the River Tarn near Millau, relieving the town of much traffic, especially during the summer months.

In 1999, José Bové, a local Larzac anti-globalisation activist disassembled the Millau McDonalds as it was being built, in symbolic protest of the spread of fast food, Americanization, and the spread of 'Genetically Modified Organisms/crops' (GMO) The McDonalds was later rebuilt. He later received a Presidential pardon from then French President Jacques Chirac.

In the 21st century, clear of traffic jams, the town is a tourist centre with one of the largest touring campsites in central France, and it is a major centre for sporting activity.

1 Administration
2 Tourism
3 In Fiction
4 External links

[edit] Administration

Millau is a sous-préfecture of the Aveyron département, in the Midi-Pyrénées région. The French code postale or postcode is 12100.

[edit] Tourism

The glove museum
Micropolis; the city of insects
Millau is also the main centre in France for paragliding
The nearby underground caves for Roquefort cheese production
The Place du Maréchal Foch, a square with 12th century arcades, one of which carries the inscription Gara qué faras or Watch what you are doing
Église Notre-Dame-de-l'Espinasse. This church allegedly once possessed a part of the Crown of Thorns, making it an important pilgrimage centre in the Middle Ages. The church was destroyed in 1582 but rebuilt in the 17th century. The frescoes from 1939 are by Jean Bernard, the stained-glass windows from 1984 by Claude Baillon.
The Passage du Pozous is a 13th century fortified gateway
The Belfry, a 12th century square tower topped by an octagonal 17th century tower on the place Emma Calvé

[edit] In Fiction

Part of Ian McEwan's award-winning novel "Atonement" (2001) centers on Briony Tallis, a nurse in a London hospital in June 1940, to which wounded British and French soldiers evacuated from Dunkirk were brought. In a poignant passage, she is comforting Luc Cornet, a young soldier from Millau who is dying of severe head wounds. In his delirium he talks of the town, of his family and his father's boulangerie where he worked, and mistakes Tallis for his own fiancee.

After he dies, Tallis for a moment imagines the life she might have had if Luc had survived and if she had married him and come to live with him in Millau:

"She imagined the unavailable future - the boulangerie in a narrow shady street swarming with skinny cats, piano music from an upstairs window, her giggling sisters-in-law teasing her about her accent, and Luc Cornet loving her in his eager way. She wanted to cry for him, and for his family in Millau who would be waiting to hear news from him. But she coudn't feel a thing. She was empty."