Mulhouse
Being the second largest town in Alsace, it comes as no surprise that Mulhouse has a significant industrial past history which makes it the ‘driver’ in a number of domains. Moreover, it was this industry which gave birth to higher education and research in Mulhouse and brought about the creation of the Université de Haute-Alsace.
Mulhouse is rather less of a tourist draw than the other larger towns of Alsace perhaps because of its traditional, industrial image. The local population is some 300,000 and it occupies a particularly advantageous geographical location just 40 km from Switzerland and Germany. As a result of this, Mulhouse is very much a cosmopolitan town : a cradle of nationalities and cultures, duly assisted by close proximity to Basel-Mulhouse-Fribourg International Airport, otherwise known as ‘Euroairport’ – the largest airport in the ‘Grand Est’ Region.
Mulhouse is thus an industrial town established by migratory movements. In fact, Mulhouse has long been called « Manchester français » (The French Manchester) having become one of the first and foremost industrial centres of Europe, thanks, in particular to « vieux DMC » (‘Old DMC’ - the Dolfuss Mieg Company). Mining is also one of the industrial features of the Mulhouse area, but more recently, this has given way to the aerospace industries. Today one can still find many traces of the town’s industrial past, for example the Cité de l’automobile (the Car Museum), the musée EDF Electropolis and the Cité du Train, the largest railway museum in Europe. One might equally add the Musée d’impression sur étoffes (the Textile and Printing Museum) and the Musée des Beaux Arts (the Fine Arts Museum). This concentration serves to make Mulhouse the « capitale européenne des musées techniques » (the European capital of technical & industrial museums).
But Mulhouse also has a history of well-known personalities : for example, Alfred Dreyfus, a French Officer of the 3rd Republic who was a famous victim of an infamous miscarriage of justice or Alfred Werner, recipient of the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1913.
In addition, one can also find in the town the famous Tour de l’Europe, the Temple Saint-Étienne and Mulhouse Zoo.