Rennes

), the most famous building in Rennes, was rebuilt after a terrible fire in 1994. It houses the Rennes court of appeal.

Rennes (Breton: Roazhon) is a city of northwestern France, in the east of Brittany. Rennes is the capital of the Bretagne région, as well as the préfecture of the Ille-et-Vilaine département.

Population of the city (commune) of Rennes at the 1999 census was 206,229 inhabitants (209,100 inhabitants as of February 2004 estimates). Population of the whole metropolitan area (French: aire urbaine) at the 1999 census was 521,188 inhabitants, ranking twelfth in France.

Administration

The current mayor of Rennes is Edmond Hervé, who has been in power since 1977, when he replaced Henri Fréville.

Geography

The town is built on a hill, with the north side being more elevated than the south side. It is at the meeting point of two rivers: the Ille and the Vilaine (hence the name of the département Ille-et-Vilaine).

History

:See separate article History of Rennes.

Economy

Local industries include car manufacturing and telecommunications. Citroën, currently the largest employer of the population of Rennes, opened a manufacturing plant at Rennes La Janais in 1961 to manufacture the Ami.

Culture

Rennes invests heavily in arts and culture and a number of its festivals (such as the music festival Les Transmusicales, les Tombées de la Nuit and le Travelling (a cinematic festival)) are well known throughout France.
Since February 14 2005, there has been a local television channel called Rennes TV.
Rennes is home to Stade Rennais FC, who play in the French Premier League

Miscellaneous

Colleges, universities and research facilities

The Rennes agglomeration has a large student population (around 60,000).

The city has two main universities:

Université de Rennes 1 [1]: science, technology, medicine, philosophy, law, management and economics-based centre

Université de Rennes 2 [1]: the arts, literature, languages, communication, human and social sciences, sport

The École Normale Supérieure de Cachan has a branch on the Ker Lann campus, just outside Rennes. An École Supérieure for political science (Sciences-Po) is based in Rennes called the Institut d'Etudes Politiques [1]
The computer science and applied mathematics research institute IRISA is in the suburbs of Rennes.

Transportation

Rennes has well developed national road, rail and air links and is two hours by TGV train from Paris. Local transport is based primarily on an extensive bus network (38 different lines) and a metro line that was inaugurated in March 2002. The metro line, called the VAL, which cost 500 million Euro to construct, is 9.4 km in length and has 15 stations, including one designed by architect Norman Foster.