You are now entering Département 91

A place of contrasts, where commuting, new towns, overcrowding and pollution to the north give way to rural villages, farmland and ancient forest to the south.

Essonne is a relatively small, around 1800 km², département in France and part of the Paris region known as Ile de France or la couronne, the area that includes Paris and all its suburbs stretching into the surrounding countryside. A département is an administrative area with its own elected council, rather like a British county council, but départements tend to be much bigger and don’t always respect historical county boundaries. There are 100 départements in France mainland and overseas (DOM, département outre mer) at the moment. Essonne is number 91 (quatre-vingt-onze).

Orly Airport in 1965

 For many Essonne is the first place they step foot in France. Part of the sprawling international Orly airport is in Essonne. This year 2011 Orly international airport is celebrating its 50 years. In the early 1960s, more tourists came to visit the public terraces of Orly-Sud’s terminal building overlooking the runways to watch planes taking off and landing than visited the Eiffel Tower.

Suburban Athis Mons and Massy are at the northern limits of Essonne and the country towns of Angerville, Méréville and Milly-la-Forêt skirt the southern limits. On the west are Gif-sur-Yvette, Dourdan and Limours and on the east Yerres, Brunoy and Corbeil-Essonnes. The large central towns of Etampes and Palaiseau are chef-lieux, sharing the administrative burden in their territories or arrondissements with Evry, the chef-lieu of the entire département. The comedy La Totale, the French precursor of the Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jamie Lee Curtis film True Lies, was filmed in Evry in all its new town splendour.

The rivers Rémarde and Yvette join the Orge tributaries that join the Seine near Juvisy-sur-Orge. Over the south Essonne, the Juine joins the Essonne tributary flowing into the Seine at Corbeil-Essonnes. Sadly the rivers of the region are badly polluted although attitudes to management of the environment are gradually changing. South of the densely populated outskirts of Paris is the fertile agricultural land of Hurepoix and Beauce, le grenier de la France, that borders département Eure et Loir, the gateway to Loire valley.

Essonne boasts the Gâtinais regional national park, shared with neighbouring département Seine-et-Marne, that includes parts of the ancient Fontainebleau forest. In my 2002 copy of Le Petit Larousse Illustré, the handy fount of knowledge every French household should have, the green outline of Essonne looks like a hazel leaf. 

Hazel leaf (Corylus sp.)

Even if you are not Essonnien born and bred, in the French administrative system you soon become inescapably linked to the département where you settle by your identity card. EU citizens are some of the few who can escape this connection, as la loi Sarkozy, introduced in 2003 when France’s current president was interior minister under Jacques Chirac, removed the obligation for EU citizens to apply for a carte de séjour, a permit for temporary residence in France. EU citizens (4% of the Essonne population are European immigrants) can instead use their passport and a proof of address (a rent or utilities bill) when proof of identity is needed, so EU citizens are free to move around France for work, rest or play. Social security numbers and car registrations also link you with your département. It is a national sport to spot cars along with their owners’ terrible driving habits. Paris drivers have the worst reputation and there’s some strong evidence to support it. In a league table of driving offences or PV for procés-verbal the capital’s drivers pick up on average more than three PVs per year. Essonne appears neither at the top or the bottom of the league so presumably the roads are fairly safe here.  

The first hypermarché, a mainstay of French life, was opened by Carrefour at St Genevieve des Bois in 1963. My mother-in-law must be one of its most faithful customers having shopped their since the 1970s. Although the hypermarché sells almost everything you can think off, my mother-in-law was unable to procure a cochon de lait, a suckling pig, from Carrefour in time for Easter Sunday lunch. We had to settle for the traditional gigot d’agneau and beans; the complimentary cheese selection went down very well though.