Flers
Commune
Château de Flers
Coat of arms
Location of Flers
Flers Show map of France Flers Show map of Normandy
Coordinates: 48°45′06″N 0°33′38″W / 48.7518°N 0.5605°W / 48.7518; -0.5605
Country	France
Region	Normandy
Department	Orne
Arrondissement	Argentan
Canton	Flers-1 and 2
Intercommunality	CA Flers Agglo
Government
• Mayor (2020–2026)	Yves Goasdoué[1]
Area 1	21.15 km2 (8.17 sq mi)
Population  (2021)[2]	14,482
• Density	680/km2 (1,800/sq mi)
Time zone	UTC+01:00 (CET)
• Summer (DST)	UTC+02:00 (CEST)
INSEE/Postal code	61169 /61100
Elevation	182–276 m (597–906 ft) (avg. 189 m or 620 ft)
Website	www.flers-agglo.fr
1 French Land Register data, which excludes lakes, ponds, glaciers > 1 km2 (0.386 sq mi or 247 acres) and river estuaries.

Flers (French pronunciation: [flɛʁ]) is a commune in the Orne department in Normandy, France.^[3] The inhabitants are called Flériens in French.

Flers is bordered to the north by the communes of Saint-Georges-des-Groseillers and Aubusson, to the north-east by Ronfeugerai, to the west by La Lande-Patry and Saint-Paul, to the south-west by La Chapelle-Biche, La Chapelle-au-Moine and Messei, and to the south-east by La Selle-la-Forge.

The commune is situated in the north-west of the Orne département, about ten kilometres from the border of the Calvados, an hour east of Granville, and two hours by train from Paris. It depends on a prefecture located an hour north in Caen.

The commune is crossed by a river, La Vere, which ends in the river Noireau in Pont-Erembourg (commune of Saint-Denis-de-Méré).

The first written mentions of Flers appear at the end of the twelfth century as Flers (1164–1179) or Flex (1188–1221). Some authors think that the name of the town derives from the German toponym Hlaeri, meaning wasteland or common grazing land, while others suggest an origin in the German Fliessen, from the Dutch vliet or the Latin fluere Latin Fluere, indicating a waterflow, basin or marsh. Yet another etymology links Flers to the Latin flexus, meaning the bend in a road or river. Finally, the Breton term fler or flear means bad smell, indicating the stench of stagnant water. All etymologies seem to agree however that the town is named for its topography and the water close to it.^[4]

From the tenth century on, the de Flers family headed a barony. Tradition has it that in the 11th century, the two brothers Foulques d'Aunou and Guillaume de Gasprée married two sisters who were Ladies of Flers. Foulques d'Aunou received as his wedding gift Flers, seat of the barony.^[5]

The construction of the castle of Flers began in the 12th century as a fortified location of wood and stone surrounded by water. The chronicles of the Hundred Years War do not mention a fortified place in Flers, revealing that it didn't present a major strategic interest at the time.

In 1790, in the revolutionary period, Flers formed a canton in the district of Domfront, in the Orne département.^[6] The countess of Flers, Jacqueline Le Goué de Richemont, wife of Pierre-François de Paule de La Motte-Ango, supported the counter-revolutionary chouans. The castle of Flers became the headquarters of count Louis de Frotté, one of the leaders of the Normandic Chouannerie.^[7]

In 1901, Julien Salles, mayor of Flers, bought the castle for the community.

Like other towns near the D-Day landing, Flers was one of the targets of strategic bombing of Normandy on 6 and 7 June 1944, aimed at reducing the advance of German reinforcements. 80% of the town was destroyed. What remained of the town was liberated on 16 August by the British 11th Armoured Division^[8] and the memorial to the division is at Pont de Vère, north of Flers.

The arms of Flers are blazoned : Gules, 2 shuttles in saltire Or, between 3 bobbins argent, a chief of France (Azure, 3 fleurs de lys Or.

Historical population

Year Pop. ±% 1793 2,603 —     1800 2,656 +2.0% 1806 2,821 +6.2% 1821 3,454 +22.4% 1831 4,386 +27.0% 1836 4,895 +11.6% 1841 6,113 +24.9% 1846 7,042 +15.2% 1851 8,461 +20.2% 1856 9,217 +8.9% 1861 10,054 +9.1% 1866 10,260 +2.0% 1872 10,678 +4.1% 1876 11,155 +4.5% 1881 12,304 +10.3% 1886 14,013 +13.9% 1891 13,860 −1.1% 1896 13,404 −3.3%	Year Pop. ±% 1901 13,680 +2.1% 1906 13,704 +0.2% 1911 13,610 −0.7% 1921 12,812 −5.9% 1926 12,948 +1.1% 1931 13,022 +0.6% 1936 12,900 −0.9% 1946 12,336 −4.4% 1954 13,010 +5.5% 1962 14,634 +12.5% 1968 17,683 +20.8% 1975 20,486 +15.9% 1982 18,911 −7.7% 1990 17,888 −5.4% 1999 16,947 −5.3% 2007 15,808 −6.7% 2012 14,968 −5.3% 2017 14,734 −1.6%
Graphs are unavailable due to technical issues. Updates on reimplementing the Graph extension, which will be known as the Chart extension, can be found on Phabricator and on MediaWiki.org.
For the census from 1962 the official population corresponds with the population without duplicates Source: EHESS[6] and INSEE[9]

Flers station is served by TER Normandie trains between Paris and Granville. It has a local bus system for Flers and the surrounding communities, and departmental lines connecting it with other major towns in Orne and Calvados.

L'aérodrome Flers-Saint-Paul is an aerodrome bordering Flers in the neighbouring commune of La Lande-Patry that opened in 1937.^[10][11] Its ICAO airport code is LFOG.^[12] It has a 742 meter paved runway.^[13]

The castle, dating back to the 16th and 18th century, houses a museum of ancient and 19th century paintings and sculptures, applied art (furniture and decoration) and local history.^[14] The castle was registered as a Monument historique in 1907.^[15]

Flers has another building registered as a monument, the Chapel of Remembrance (Also known as the chapel of the minor seminary), which was built between from 1926 to 1932 to commemorate those fallen from the First World War.^[16] It features work by Prix de Rome winning artist, Emile Beaume and stained glass artist Louis Barillet.^[16] It was registered as a monument in 2006.^[17]

Other interesting visits are the early 20th century neo-gothic Saint-Germain church and the 19th century neo-Romanesque Saint-Jean church, and the covered market built in 1883 on a former cemetery.^[18]

• 
  Flers castle
• 
  Flers castle
• 
  The covered market
• 
  Saint-Germain church

Flers has a football club Football Club Flérien who play at the Stade du Hazé.^[19]

• Louis Barrabé (1895–1961), geologist, buried here^[20]
• Paulette Duhalde (1921–1945), heroine of the resistance, died when deported to Ravensbrück

• Jean-Pierre Brard, politician
• Henri Brière, politician
• Tony Chapron, international football (soccer) referee
• Gérard Larcher, President of the Senate of France
• Patrice Lecornu (1958–2023), professional football (soccer) player^[21]
• Alain Lemercier, racewalker
• Guy Mollet, politician
• François Morel, comedian, writer and singer
• Thibault Moulin, footballer who plays for Legia Warsaw

Flers is twinned with:^{[22][23][24][25]}

• Warminster, England, since 1973
• Poundou, Burkina Faso, since 1977
• Wunstorf, Germany, since 1994
• Charleston, South Carolina, USA, since 2022

Flers is part of the region that stretches from the Bocage to the Écouves forest, the wettest part of the Orne département, with relatively mild temperatures thanks to its proximity to the English Channel and the effect of the sea. It benefits from an oceanic climate with mild winters and temperate summers.^[26]

• Communes of the Orne department

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Flers, Orne.

Wikisource has the text of the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica article "Flers".

Official local sites

• Official site of the agglomeration
• Tourist Office
• Castle of Flers Museum Archived 2009-08-19 at the Wayback Machine

Maps

• National geographic institute