History of Angouleme

Postwar History

After the war, the city underwent a major expansion of its suburbs. First Grand Font and Bel-Air, following the MRU reconstruction program for war damage of the area around the station which was bombed in 1944. Then in the 1960s the districts of Basseau (ZAC) and the Grande-Garenne were built and then there was the creation of Priority Urban Zones (ZUPs) at Ma Campagne in the 1970s.

Gradually industries moved into more spacious industrial zones created in the peripheral communes between 1959 and 1975:

Sillac-Rabion (1959)

les Agriers (1964)

ZI No. 3: Gond-Pontouvre and L'Isle-d'Espagnac (1967)

Nersac (early 1970s)

Combe at Saint-Yrieix (1980)

Urbanisation also affected the peripheral communes with housing estates at Soyaux and Ruelle-sur-Touvre and the agglomeration became one of the largest cities in the south-west.

In 1972, the city signed a "pilot city" contract with the State (DATAR, represented by Albin Chalandon), which allowed the city to make large scale public works - e.g. the small ring road (bridge and Rue Saint-Antoine, Boulevard Bretagne, Tunnel of Gâtine) penetrating Ma Campagne and called the way to Europe, the ZUPs at Ma Campagne, the Saint-Martial town centre, underground parking at Bouillaud and Saint-Martial, Montauzier indoor swimming pools at Ma Campagne, a pedestrianized street, a one-way traffic plan with computerized management of traffic lights