Aubière

Location

Aubière is located in the south-east of Clermont-Ferrand (3.7 km), in the center of Puy-de-Dôme. It borders other Clermont's villages such as: Beaumont, Romagnat, Pérignat-lès-Sarliève, and Cournon-d'Auvergne.

In Aubière, there's an important shopping mall "Plein Sud", and the Cézeaux's Campus which gathers an important teaching center as well as a research one.

A large fire department including Beaumont's firefighters is located on new housing estates in development in the northeast.

Road transport

Rail transport

The city doesn't have a railway station but the closest railways stations are located in Clermont, the main station and La Pardieu.

Urban transport

Aubière is served by both the tramway (3 stops) and 4 bus lines.

Town Planning

Aubière is not only twinned with Grevenmacher , in Luxembourg, and Sperlonga, in Italy, but also carries out decentralized cooperation with Rollo, in Burkina Faso.

Accommodation

There were 5,205 accommodations in 2009 against only 5,172 in 2006.

Among these accommodations, 92.6% were main residences, 1.1% were secondary residences and 6.2% were holidays residences. 51.4% of them were individual houses and 47.2% were apartments.

The portion of the main residences which are owned by its residents was 48.6%. The number has been slightly decreasing if compared with 2006's number (51.9%).

The renting of empty HLM (Habitation à Loyer Moderé), which means (council Accommodation) went down from 6.8% to 5.8%.

Administrative history

Aubière belonged to the Clermont-Ferrand's district in 1793 which became in 1801 the suburbs of the city. In 1873, the village gives away Pérignat-lès-Sarliève.

Historic facts

Until the end of the 19th century, Aubière had an intensive activity connected to wine which ended after the phylloxera epidemic. Proof of that is the fact that most of the “maison de bourg” ( typical houses built vertically) have a winery on the cave and most of these were built on the North and South edges of Aubière, along the “Vallée de l’Artière” which is a valley all across the village. Nowadays, there is only one wine producer in the village.

The particularity of these wine cellars is that they are also built in height due to the fact that the water that runs under the houses creates a large amount of humidity. A local legend is likely to tell us to go up to the cellar instead of going down to the cellar.

The Aubiére’s museum of grapevine and wine still conserves the traditional tools used in the wine production as well as the most important files. The scope of this museum is not restricted to the village of Aubière but to all kinds of wine produced in Auvergne.

Still in the agriculture aspect, we can find many private vegetable fields. Even if these fields still exist, they are losing area in consequence of the increasing demography and the rent.

List of mayors

The current mayor is Christian Sinsard, elected in March 2008. He is reelected in 2014.

List of previous mayors of Aubière:

Demography

In 2012, there were 9,536 inhabitants. The evolution of the number of population is known thanks to the population census made in the village since 1793. Since the 21st century, all the actual census of the village of less than 10,000 inhabitants happens every five years, unlike the others that make it every year.

Cultural events and festivities

The feast of the “Rosière” happens at the end of every spring, “the Rosière” (the most beautiful girl or woman in the celebration) is chosen.

Every year, in September, the village organizes “La foire de Saint Loup”, where everyone can participate and empty their attics.

Education

Aubière is part of the Academy of Clermont-Ferrand. It manages the two Primary and Compulsory public schools, Beaudonnat and Vercingetorix.

The Puy de Dôme's general council runs the Public middle school called Joliot Curie.

There is also a private educational center named Saint Joseph composed by an elementary and middle school.

There is also the Cezeaux Campus composed by a variety of schools.

Social and sportive lifestyle

Aubière is home to a football team who dresses in yellow and blue in honor of the colors of the village. This team plays in the Beaudonnat stadium. There is also the “Amicale Laique”; an association that provides basket, tennis, handball, etc. and many associations of dancing, gym, judo, karate, and a sports club.