On Octobre 22th, 2008, the national jury of the “Villes et villages fleuris” association (association of towns and villages taking part in the flower competition) awarded a 4th flower to Alès. The town thus became one of the 201 town in France and above all the only town in Languedoc Roussillon to have had such a decoration. Besides Alès, Fraisse-sur-Agout Village is the only other town to have 4th flower but it is a 350 inhabitants locality which is not confronted to the same constraints as Alès and its 42 000 inhabitants.

The Pride of the Town
“This 4th flower is the pride and joy of Alès representatives and of the whole staff of the City Hall” explains Max Roustan, MP and Mayor of Alès. This award is the eventual realization of the collective effort to transform our town”. Indeed, this was a way to change the image of the “black”, sad and dusty mining town that Alès used to be. Now the town has taken the face of a jolly spruce town full of flowers and fountains, a town to which “Villes et villages Fleuris”awarded the highest award possible.

10 years of collective efforts rewarded
This 4th flower is a sure sign that the efforts that have been made to make of Alès a real place of “well-living” have borne fruit. Far beyond the flowers, the Jury also takes strict selection criteria into account, urban renewal, road, rail and waterways networks, waste sorting, Agenda 21, or water management… these are part of the many parameters that Alès is concerned with and continually trying to better so as to ameliorate the daily environment of its inhabitants and to make people want to come back to Alès and ,why not, to settle.