The feminization of street names is advancing at full speed



Rue Anne-Mandeville, on the island of Nantes, named in homage to the painter. – F.Brenon / 20Minutes

  • In 2016, the town hall of Nantes embarked on a process of feminizing the names of its streets and squares.
  • Since then, more than 70% of the names chosen are those of famous women.
  • The names of Simone Veil and Gisèle Hallimi will soon be assigned to two new boulevards on the Ile de Nantes.

They are called Florence Arthaud, Louise Bourgeois, Anna Marly, Clémence Lefeuvre, Joséphine Baker, Miriam Makeba, Anne Mandeville or Lucy Stone… Whether they are artists, activists, sportsmen or cooks, these illustrious women, now deceased, have the common point of recently owning a street or a square in their name in Nantes. They will soon be joined by Simone Veil and Gisèle Hallimi since the Nantes city council adopted on Friday the names of the former minister and the former lawyer, figures of feminism, to baptize two large boulevards serving the future CHU on the island of Nantes.

For five years, when a municipal initiative was launched on the feminization of the names of public places, no less than 115 streets and squares bearing a woman’s name have thus been created in Nantes. “This is already more than what had been achieved over the previous two centuries”, rejoices Olivier Château, deputy mayor.
in charge of heritage. In fact, in 2016, the City of the Dukes only had a hundred or so streets with a female surname. This is only 3% of all street names in the city. Conversely, there were 1,100 names of men, or more than a third of the total (the majority being place names or common names)!

“Little by little, it’s changing mentalities”

“Of course, we were starting a long way and there is still work to be done. But the process is very active and we have made a lot of progress, says Olivier Château. For example, since 2016, more than 70% of the names chosen are women. In 2020, this rate even reached 88%. And we also do it for public facilities, such as the Agnès-Varda space, the Joséphine-Baker school or the Virginia-Woolf square, to name only recent examples. “

The denominations are drawn from a list of 38 personalities proposed by the people of Nantes in 2016, but also off the list when the city council wishes to promote famous women (Edith Piaf, Sister Emmanuelle…) or “local characters not necessarily very well known”, such as the Nantes singer Geneviève Vix for example.

The benefits of the process would already be visible. “With each new street announced there are positive reactions, testimonies of attachment to the personality, assures the elected official. Seeing the names of women in public space means that we wonder, that we remember their journeys. Little by little, this is changing mentalities and it shows that it is normal for men and women to be on an equal footing in the public space. One can think that, for the younger generations, it will seem quite natural. “

Men are not forgotten

Critics point out that the new female names are mostly those of aisles or small lanes. “We do this based on the transformation of the city and, therefore, on what we can call. The creation of new boulevards or new avenues remains rare today in Nantes ”, explains Olivier Château. The town hall is, moreover, not in favor of renaming an axis “in order to avoid the administrative constraints that this generates for the inhabitants”.

As for the names of men, they are not forgotten. “We favor the names of women in order to achieve a rebalancing but we obviously do not refrain from choosing a man’s name, promises the deputy mayor. It will depend on the news or the history of a neighborhood. “



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