Thanks to Eurostar and the international extension of the TGV network, Lille has become the transport hub of northern Europe, a position it is trying to exploit to turn itself into an international business centre, with the appropriate space-age facilities. Hence, Euralille , the burgeoning complex of buildings behind the old gare SNCF .

 

One definite success is the new Lille-Europe TGV and Eurostar station : composed of lots of props and struts and glass and sunscreens, it's lean, elegant and functional, a fitting setting for the magnificent trains that use it. The other developments smack of a new totalitarianism: manipulation of the consuming masses by the distant powers of international finance. Literally treading on the roof of the new station is an anonymous boot-shaped tower reminiscent of nothing so much as the home of the old woman in the nursery rhyme who lived in a shoe. And opposite is an enormous shopping centre with galvanized walkways, marbled malls and relentless Muzak. This controlled environment is traceable to the utopian dreams of Le Corbusier, whose paternity is acknowledged in the avenue Le Corbusier , which sweeps over the plaza to the Lille-Europe station. There are other ironies, too, such as the fashion for "factory" architecture now that there are no more factories - there's more than thirteen percent unemployment in Lille, more than sixteen percent in neighbouring Roubaix, and more than twenty percent among the immigrant community.