Moutier


Moutier is a municipality in the Jura bernois administrative district in the canton of Bern in Switzerland. It is located in the French-speaking Bernese Jura.

History

Moutier is first mentioned in 1154 as datum Monasterii. In 1181 it was mentioned as apud Monasterium. The German name for the town is Münster , but it is not frequently used.
The area was lightly settled even before the founding of Moutier-Grandval Abbey around 640. Much of the early history of the village is closely connected with the Abbey. Between 1049 and 1150 the Abbey was granted a stift or land donation to support the college of canons. The stift allowed the Abbey to grow into a major landholder and a regional power. The village church of Saint-Pierre, which eventually became a parish church, was probably built during the Early Middle Ages. In the 12th century another monastery was founded in Moutier, but it was destroyed in a fire in 1269. In addition to the Church of Saint-Pierre, the collegiate church of Saint-Germain and Saint-Randoald was built in Moutier during the 12th century. Everything changed in Moutier after the Protestant Reformation was accepted by Bern in 1531. The Abbey closed and the college of canons relocated to Delémont. The church of Saint-Germain and Saint-Randoald was closed while the church of Saint-Pierre converted to the new faith and was expanded. A fire destroyed the church of Saint-Germain and Saint-Randoald in 1571 though in 1860-63 a Reformed church was built on the site. The church of Saint-Pierre was demolished in 1873. Today Moutier has both German and French speaking churches.
After the college of canons of the Abbey moved to Delémont, the Abbey's properties in and around Moutier fell under the Prince-Bishop of Basel. The Bishop appointed a provost to manage the Abbey's estates and around the end of the 16th century, built the Provost's Castle. The provost remained in Moutier until 1797. After the 1797 French victory and the Treaty of Campo Formio, Moutier became part of the French Département of Mont-Terrible. Three years later, in 1800 it became part of the Département of Haut-Rhin. After Napoleon's defeat and the Congress of Vienna, Moutier was assigned to the Canton of Bern in 1815. Two years later, in 1817, the Canton of Bern acquired the castle and used it as the seat of the district governor.
During the 19th century and early 20th century, Moutier developed into a transportation hub. In 1876 a railway opened between Basel and Moutier. This first railroad was followed by a route to Biel through the Tavannes valley in 1877 and then to Solothurn in 1908. In 1915 the long Grenchenberg tunnel connected Moutier and Grenchen. The extensive road and railroad network encouraged Moutier to industrialize, with three industries, glass-making, watchmaking and automatic lathes, gaining international recognition for Moutier.
In 1842 Célestin Châtelain founded the Verrerie de Moutier glass factory. They became the most important window glass manufacturer in Switzerland and by the 1970s produced 250 tons of glass per month to meet Swiss domestic demand. The conversion from glass rolling to float glass spelled the end of the old Moutier glass factory, it closed in 1978. However, a subsidiary, Verres Industriels SA, had been created in 1955 and they began producing glass with the new process. Today Verres Industriels employs about 200 people.
Watchmaking first spread throughout the Jura region as a cottage industry during the 19th century. In the late 19th century the Grande Fabrique was built in Moutier and by 1880 employed about 500 workers. A number of watchmakers opened factories in the town, of which Léon Lévy & Frères and Louis Schwab were some of the largest. However, many of Moutier's independent watchmakers went bankrupt and were forced to close during the Great Depression. Those that survived this period were generally absorbed by ETA SA in the 1950s.
In 1883 Nicolas Junker founded the Junker & Cie company to manufacture automatic lathes with a moveable headstock. After a bankruptcy and several name changes the company became Usines Tornos, Fabrique de machines Moutier SA in 1918. In 1968 Tornos bought the Pétermann SA company to become Tornos Pétermann. They then merged in 1974 with Bechler SA to become Moutier Machines Holding, which became Tornos-Bechler SA in 1981. It was renamed to Tornos SA in 2001. Over its nearly a century in operation, Usines Tornos built workers' housing, provided jobs and vocational training and helped drive Moutier's growth. At its peak in 1974, the company employed about 3,000 people. Between 1980 and 2000, the company acquired and sold off several companies and reduced its headcount to about 1300 in 2001. In 2010 the company employed 855 people, including 655 in Moutier.
In 1950, Moutier became a city and a number of construction projects followed. A swimming pool opened in that same year. In 1955 a second primary school opened along with a new building for the secondary school. A new train station opened in 1961. In 1962 the old secondary school was converted into a town hall. A primary school in Chantemerle opened in 1973 and a new district hospital was built in 1976. There are two museums in town, the villa Bechler with the Jurassic Museum of Arts and the villa Junker with the Museum of Automatic Lathes.
Politically, the issue of Jurassic separatism is a major issue in Moutier. In 1974 a plebiscite voted to remain part of Bern by a margin of only 70 votes. This led to acts of vandalism on 16 March 1974 and on 7 September 1975 an armed standoff at the Hôtel de la Gare which was broken up by an elite team of Bernese police on the following day. Two other plebiscites also came down on the side of remaining in the Canton of Bern, including one in 1998 which passed with a thin majority of 41 votes. In 2013 a third plebiscite ended with the majority of residents choosing to remain in Bern, though a majority of residents of Moutier wanted to join Jura. On 18 June 2017 the municipality held a referendum, asking citizens 'Do you want the city of Moutier to belong to the Republic and Canton of Jura?' The result of the referendum was 51.7% of the citizenry voting in favour of Moutier joining the Canton of Jura. The vote has since been declared invalid.

Geography

Moutier has an area of. As of 2012, a total of or 29.8% is used for agricultural purposes, while or 55.0% is forested. Of the rest of the land, or 13.9% is settled, or 0.9% is either rivers or lakes and or 0.6% is unproductive land.
During the same year, industrial buildings made up 1.3% of the total area while housing and buildings made up 6.9% and transportation infrastructure made up 3.5%. Power and water infrastructure as well as other special developed areas made up 1.5% of the area Out of the forested land, 52.4% of the total land area is heavily forested and 2.6% is covered with orchards or small clusters of trees. Of the agricultural land, 3.7% is used for growing crops and 14.1% is pastures and 11.6% is used for alpine pastures. All the water in the municipality is flowing water.
The area around Moutier is called the Prévôté. It is a valley crossed by a river called the Birs. It covers the area from Court Gorge to Moutier Gorge and includes some scattered farm houses on the Montagne de Moutier.
On 31 December 2009 the District de Moutier, of which it was the capital, was dissolved. On the following day, 1 January 2010, it joined the newly created Arrondissement administratif Jura bernois.

Coat of arms

The blazon of the municipal coat of arms is Gules a Monastery Argent.

Demographics

Moutier has a population of. , 23.4% of the population are resident foreign nationals. Over the last 10 years the population has changed at a rate of 0.2%. Migration accounted for 0%, while births and deaths accounted for -0.2%.
Most of the population speaks French as their first language, German is the second most common and Italian is the third. There are 2 people who speak Romansh.
, the population was 49.0% male and 51.0% female. The population was made up of 2,777 Swiss men and 885 non-Swiss men. There were 2,940 Swiss women and 864 non-Swiss women. Of the population in the municipality, 2,793 or about 36.3% were born in Moutier and lived there in 2000. There were 1,252 or 16.3% who were born in the same canton, while 1,808 or 23.5% were born somewhere else in Switzerland, and 1,605 or 20.8% were born outside of Switzerland.
, children and teenagers make up 20.1% of the population, while adults make up 59.3% and seniors make up 20.6%.
, there were 2,925 people who were single and never married in the municipality. There were 3,800 married individuals, 564 widows or widowers and 412 individuals who are divorced.
, there were 1,239 households that consist of only one person and 186 households with five or more people. , a total of 3,369 apartments were permanently occupied, while 286 apartments were seasonally occupied and 198 apartments were empty. , the construction rate of new housing units was 0.9 new units per 1000 residents. The vacancy rate for the municipality,, was 3.59%. In 2011, single family homes made up 51.4% of the total housing in the municipality.
The historical population is given in the following chart:

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bar:1850 from:start till:917 text:"917"
bar:1860 from:start till:1570 text:"1,570"
bar:1870 from:start till:1946 text:"1,946"
bar:1880 from:start till:2111 text:"2,111"
bar:1888 from:start till:2320 text:"2,320"
bar:1900 from:start till:3088 text:"3,088"
bar:1910 from:start till:4164 text:"4,164"
bar:1920 from:start till:4631 text:"4,631"
bar:1930 from:start till:4704 text:"4,704"
bar:1941 from:start till:5165 text:"5,165"
bar:1950 from:start till:5916 text:"5,916"
bar:1960 from:start till:7472 text:"7,472"
bar:1970 from:start till:8794 text:"8,794"
bar:1980 from:start till:7959 text:"7,959"
bar:1990 from:start till:7860 text:"7,860"
bar:2000 from:start till:7701 text:"7,701"

Heritage sites of national significance

The chapel and cemetery De Chalière is listed as a Swiss heritage site of national significance. The entire urbanized village of Moutier is part of the Inventory of Swiss Heritage Sites.

Politics

In the 2011 federal election the most popular party was the Social Democratic Party which received 23.7% of the vote. The next three most popular parties were the Swiss People's Party , the Christian Democratic People's Party and another local party. In the federal election, a total of 1,898 votes were cast, and the voter turnout was 38.2%.

Economy

The area has many factories that produce high-precision machine tools, particularly CNC & CAD/CAM machining centers, including Tornos Bechler SA & Schaublin Machines SA.
, Moutier had an unemployment rate of 2.71%. , there were a total of 3,916 people employed in the municipality. Of these, there were 46 people employed in the primary economic sector and about 17 businesses involved in this sector. 2,121 people were employed in the secondary sector and there were 114 businesses in this sector. 1,749 people were employed in the tertiary sector, with 262 businesses in this sector. There were 3,845 residents of the municipality who were employed in some capacity, of which females made up 43.4% of the workforce.
there were a total of 3,437 full-time equivalent jobs. The number of jobs in the primary sector was 33, of which 31 were in agriculture and 2 were in forestry or lumber production. The number of jobs in the secondary sector was 2,022 of which 1,744 or were in manufacturing and 246 were in construction. The number of jobs in the tertiary sector was 1,382. In the tertiary sector; 306 or 22.1% were in wholesale or retail sales or the repair of motor vehicles, 53 or 3.8% were in the movement and storage of goods, 74 or 5.4% were in a hotel or restaurant, 17 or 1.2% were in the information industry, 56 or 4.1% were the insurance or financial industry, 127 or 9.2% were technical professionals or scientists, 102 or 7.4% were in education and 344 or 24.9% were in health care.
, there were 2,315 workers who commuted into the municipality and 1,241 workers who commuted away. The municipality is a net importer of workers, with about 1.9 workers entering the municipality for every one leaving. A total of 2,603 workers both lived and worked in Moutier. About 4.0% of the workforce coming into Moutier are coming from outside Switzerland.
Of the working population, 13.2% used public transportation to get to work, and 55.9% used a private car.
In 2011 the average local and cantonal tax rate on a married resident, with two children, of Moutier making 150,000 CHF was 13.2%, while an unmarried resident's rate was 19.4%. For comparison, the rate for the entire canton in the same year, was 14.2% and 22.0%, while the nationwide rate was 12.3% and 21.1% respectively.
In 2009 there were a total of 3,307 tax payers in the municipality. Of that total, 929 made over 75,000 CHF per year. There were 39 people who made between 15,000 and 20,000 per year. The average income of the over 75,000 CHF group in Moutier was 108,914 CHF, while the average across all of Switzerland was 130,478 CHF. In 2011 a total of 7.5% of the population received direct financial assistance from the government.

Religion

From the, 3,684 or 47.8% were Roman Catholic, while 2,201 or 28.6% belonged to the Swiss Reformed Church. Of the rest of the population, there were 50 members of an Orthodox church, there were 11 individuals who belonged to the Christian Catholic Church, and there were 415 individuals who belonged to another Christian church. There were 3 individuals who were Jewish, and 266 who were Islamic. There were 15 individuals who were Buddhist, 2 individuals who were Hindu and 3 individuals who belonged to another church. 766 belonged to no church, are agnostic or atheist, and 285 individuals did not answer the question.

Transport

Moutier sits at the junction of three railway lines: Basel–Biel/Bienne, Solothurn–Moutier and Sonceboz-Sombeval–Moutier. It is served by regional and long-distance trains at Moutier.

Climate

Between 1981 and 2010 Moutier had an average of 136 days of rain or snow per year and on average received of precipitation. The wettest month was May during which time Moutier received an average of of rain or snow. During this month there was precipitation for an average of 13.5 days. The driest month of the year was February with an average of of precipitation over 10.4 days.

Education

In Moutier about 48.6% of the population have completed non-mandatory upper secondary education, and 14.8% have completed additional higher education. Of the 721 who had completed some form of tertiary schooling listed in the census, 61.4% were Swiss men, 22.9% were Swiss women, 8.6% were non-Swiss men and 7.1% were non-Swiss women.
The Canton of Bern school system provides one year of non-obligatory Kindergarten, followed by six years of Primary school. This is followed by three years of obligatory lower Secondary school where the students are separated according to ability and aptitude. Following the lower Secondary students may attend additional schooling or they may enter an apprenticeship.
During the 2011–12 school year, there were a total of 918 students attending classes in Moutier. There were 8 kindergarten classes with a total of 144 students in the municipality. Of the kindergarten students, 27.8% were permanent or temporary residents of Switzerland and 22.9% have a different mother language than the classroom language. The municipality had 27 primary classes and 456 students. Of the primary students, 32.9% were permanent or temporary residents of Switzerland and 15.6% have a different mother language than the classroom language. During the same year, there were 17 lower secondary classes with a total of 318 students. There were 29.2% who were permanent or temporary residents of Switzerland and 27.0% have a different mother language than the classroom language.
, there were a total of 1,207 students attending any school in the municipality. Of those, 930 both lived and attended school in the municipality, while 277 students came from another municipality. During the same year, 204 residents attended schools outside the municipality.
Moutier is home to the Bibliothèque régionale library. The library has 21,262 books or other media, and loaned out 50,805 items in the same year. It was open a total of 249 days with average of 17.3 hours per week during that year.

Notable people