Lorraine region – birthplace of father of Europe
Lorraine, the birthplace of Robert Schuman, one of the fathers of the European Union, is a perfect place to host an event such as Youth Voice. 81 young people who will come together for the Youth Voice event will celebrate together the European citizenship and the increased mobility opportunities that the united Europe offers to young people. Lorraine is one of the 26 régions of France. Metz is considered to be the official capital since that is where the regional parliament is situated. The region's name is derived from the medieval Lotharingia.
Lotharingia experienced great prosperity during the 12th and 13th centuries under the Hohenstaufen emperors, but this prosperity was terminated in the 14th century by a series of harsh winters, bad harvests, and the Black Death. During the Renaissance, prosperity returned to Lothringia under Habsburg administration, until the Thirty Years' War devastated large parts of southern Germany. Most of Elsaß was ceded to France at the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, which marked its start, along with Alsace, as a contested territory between France and Germany (French-German enmity). In which from 1871 until 1918 a large part of the region was part of the German Empire as the Imperial Province Elsaß-Lothringen.
When the French régions were created in the middle of the 20th century, it was decided to gather Meurthe et Moselle, Meuse, Moselle and Vosges into a single region, simply called "Lorraine".
Lorraine is the only French region to have borders with three other countries: Belgium (Wallonia), Luxembourg, and Germany (Saar, Rhineland-Palatinate). It also borders the French regions of Franche-Comté, Alsace, and Champagne-Ardenne. The location of Lorraine led to it being seen as a strategic asset and as the crossroads of four nations, it had a very important role in European affairs. Many rivers run through Lorraine, including Moselle, Meurthe, and Meuse.
Most of Lorraine has a clear French identity. For this reason, Bismarck only annexed about a third of today's Lorraine to the German Empire following the Franco-Prussian War. The disputed third, known as Moselle, had a culture not easily classifiable as either French or German, possessing both Romance and Germanic dialects. Like many border regions, Lorraine was a patchwork of ethnicities and dialects, sometimes not even mutually intelligible with either French or German.
With 44 billion euros, Lorraine generates 3.4% of France's GDP, and ranks 8th out of the 26 regions of France. The logistics and service sectors have experienced the strongest growth in recent years while the traditional industries (textiles, mining, metallurgy) have experienced a dechne.
Source: wikipedia.org