Battant is the former faubourg of Besançon, on the right bank of the Doubs, facing the Boucle to which it is linked by the Battant bridge. Attested since Gallo-Roman times, the district owes its name to a fulling mill for cloth once driven by the Mouillère stream. It was long home to winegrowers, tanners, watchmaking workers and washerwomen, whose boats moored at the foot of the tour de la Pelote. Vine growing remained the main activity there until the end of the nineteenth century.
Its residents are nicknamed the Bousbots, in memory of the resistance of the district's winegrowers during the attempt to take the town by the Huguenots of Montbéliard in 1575. A conservation area with a dense stock of older buildings, Battant stretches between the Boucle, la Butte and the slopes. It is today one of the liveliest areas of Besançon, with its many small shops, its market and its nightlife, along the rue Battant and around the Marulaz area.
Sought after for its faubourg atmosphere and its immediate proximity to the centre, Battant sits in the core of the Besançon market. The district is seeing real momentum, carried by the gradual refurbishment of its older buildings. Supply there consists mainly of older apartments, from studios to flats with character, popular with investors and with first-time buyers drawn to the charm of old stone.
