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Orléans (Municipality, Loiret, France)

Municipal flag of Orléans
Left: Ceremonial flag - Image by Arnaud Leroy, 18 September 2002
Right: Usual flag - Image by Ivan Sache, 18 September 2002

Presentation of Orléans
Municipal flag of Orléans
ADAS INRA, section of Orléans

See also:

Presentation of Orléans

The city of Orléans (116,559 inhabitants (260,000 inh. when including the outskirts) is located on the river Loire, 115 km south of Paris.

In the Gaul time, the city of Canubium was in the center of the Carnutes' country and the druids had an annual meeting there. The revolt against the Roman occupation started there in 52 BC. In 451, the city under the protection of Bishop St. Aignan resisted victoriously Attila's Huns.
During the Xth and XIth centuries, Orléans was one of the centers of the young Capetian monarchy, the two other centers being Chartres and Paris.
Orléans is famous for the siege of 1428-1429 during the Hundred Years' War and the intervention of Joan of Arc (a.k.a. as la pucelle d'Orléans, pucelle being a familiar term for a virgin). The Joan of Arc's festival (Fêtes Johanniques) has been commemorating these events each spring since 1435 except during wartime. On 7 May, the "very authentic standard of Joan of Arc" is presented to the population.

Orléans is the birth city of the poet and polemist Charles Péguy (1873-1914), who was in the same time Dreyfusard, humanitarian Socialist, patriot (he died during First World War) and fervent Roman Catholic.

Orléans is also known for rose gardening and its forest.

There have been four princely houses of Orléans. The second house (Orléans-Valois) is famous for the poet Charles d'Orléans (1394-1465) and his son Louis II (1462-1515), King of France as Louis XII (1498-1515). The fourth house of Orléans (Orléans-Bourbon) is famous for Philippe II (1674-1723), a.k.a. le Régent(1715-1723, during the minority of Louis XV), Louis-Philippe Joseph (1747-1793), a.k.a. Philippe-Egalité, who voted the death of Louis XVI and was himself guillotinized later on, and his son Louis-Philippe II (1773-1850), King of the French as Louis-Philippe I (1830-1848).
Henri d'Orléans (b. 1903), Count of Paris and Orléaniste pretender to the throne of France, recently passed away. The members of the Orléans family are buried in the Royal Chapel of Dreux, not far from Versailles.

The Algerian city of Orléansville (later on El-Asnam and now Ech-Cheliff) as well as La Nouvelle-Orléans / New Orleans were named after the Orléans houses.

Ivan Sache, 20 November 1999

Municipal flag of Orléans

The ceremonial flag of Orléans, as communicated to Pascal Vagnat by the municipal administration, is vertically divided yellow-red with the municipal coat of arms placed in the middle of the flag.

On the coat of arms, the three white charges are coeurs-de-lis (lily hearts). The use of coeurs-de-lis in Orléans dates back to the XVth century, and is probably related to the liberation of the city by Joan of Arc on 8 May 1429. The motto Hoc vernant lilia corde can be translated as "this heart makes the lilies flower". It dates back to the reign of Louis XI (1498-1515), who was also Duke of Orléans. It refers to the spring of France, blossoming again after the dark seasons of the Hundred Years' War. The chief of France, azure with the three fleurs-de-lis or, recalls that Orléans was among the 36 "good cities" (bonnes villes) whose Mayor was invited to the Royal coronation ceremony. The cross below the shield is the War Cross (1939-1945).

Source: GASO website

The municipal flag without the arms is widely used throughout the city. The flag with the coat of arms might probably be used for ceremonial purposes only and be kept somewhere inside the city hall.

Ivan Sache, 18 September 2002

ADAS INRA, section of Orléans

Banner of ADAS INRA Orléans - Image by Ivan Sache & Arnaud Leroy, 2 April 2005

INRA (Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique) was founded in 1946. It has now c. 10,000 employees. The institute is a state agency depending both on the Ministry of Agriculture and the Ministry of Scientific Research.

In France, private companies with more than 50 employees must have a comité d'entreprise, whose members are elected by the staff and whose budget is a mandatory percentage of the wage bill. The main function of the comité d'entreprise is to arrange company-subsidized benefits for the staff.
Being a state agency, INRA cannot have a comité d'entreprise. The social function of the comité d'entreprise is provided by a non-profit making association called Association pour le Développement des Activités Sociales à l'INRA (ADAS INRA). Every INRA employee can join the association for a small fee, most of the budget of ADAS being allocated by INRA. Since INRA is geographically scattered all over France (including Corsica, Guadeloupe and French Guiana), ADAS is organized in local sections placed under the umbrella of national ADAS; each section has its own statutes, budget and organization, which have to fit the national ADAS statutes.
Every four years, membres of the ADAS section get together for an event called Adayades; there are sport Adayades and cultural Adayaydes. The last cultural Adayades took place in Aussois (in the Alps) last winter. The event was reported in a special issue of the ADAS newsletter, ADAS Info. A picture shows the vocal quartet from Orléans performing on stage, in front of the banner of the local section of Orléans.
The banner of the Orléans local section of ADAS is a vertical (25:10), forked flag, vertically divided yellow-red, like the municipal flag of Orléans, with the municipal coat of arms of Orléans near the top of the flag, surmonting the writing, in gold letters:

ADAS INRA
SECTION
D'ORLEANS

Ivan Sache, 2 April 2005