The Place du Général-de-Gaulle continues to serve as a grand plaza for festivities, exchanges, and commercial activities, as well as various events of all kinds.

[5] For motorized vehicles, since August 1, 2016, Place du Général-de-Gaulle is accessible exclusively from Rue des Manneliers.

Since 2011, the Place du Général-de-Gaulle has been a "zone de rencontre": motorized vehicles must give way to pedestrians, and their speed is limited to 20 km/h.

[9] According to a survey carried out in 2007 on a population sample of 100, 48% of people arriving at Place du Général-de-Gaulle came on foot, 32% by public transport, 14% by car, and 6% by bicycle.

[9] With the arrival of the metro, buses have been discontinue, as previously, the square served as a nodal point where several tramway lines converged.

[11][12] In September 1944,[13] after the liberation of Lille, the square was renamed in honor of Charles de Gaulle, who was born in the commune in 1890,[14] and became known as "Place du Général-de-Gaulle".

[18][19] Based on the foundation act of the Saint-Pierre collegiate church,[20] historians have long believed that the square dates back to the origins of the commune.

[20][25] In 1242, the city's aldermen canalized[26] the Basse-Deûle between La Bassée and Lille,[27] creating a permanent body of water and flooding the cellars bordering the present-day square.

In the 14th century, a layer of evenly packed limestone was laid down, definitively establishing the site's purpose as a market square.

[22][29] (it took this name around 1350[15]), hosting the numerous stalls of merchants sheltered under canvas awnings, which they set up as they pleased,[34] without the alderman being able to enforce compliance with the defined locations.

[20] At its center, from north to south, were the Hôtel du Beauregard, the Chapelle des Ardents, and the Fountaine au Change.

[38] The square was also a symbolic place for the authorities: the revart, the town's chief Alderman, and the prévôt de la ville, the king's agent, were based there.

[49] In 1651, the Alderman[nb 2] decided to build a Bourse de Commerce on the Place du Marché at the fountain au Change;[50] on July 30, he also had the Notre-Dame-des-Ardents chapel demolished.

[55] The following year, in 1685, Louis XIV's engineers planned to adorn the square with an equestrian statue of the king and two fountains to impose the royal imprint.

In 1792, after the Battle of Marquain, Theobald de Dillon, already in agony, died in a pyre lit on the Grand'Place,[58] and one of his executioners was guillotined in roughly the same spot on July 13 of the same year.

[60] Then, during the siege of Lille, bombing raids set fire to the church of Saint-Étienne[61] and undermined a turret on the bourse de commerce.

In 1803, during Napoleon I's visit to Lille, the grand-place welcomed a huge esplanade at its center, accompanied by a Greek temple built in a circle, which was illuminated at dusk.

[64] Under the First Empire and the Restoration, public construction was limited to occasional operations,[65] and then at the end of the Hundred Days, the inhabitants of the square held a grand celebration of Henri IV and the Bourbon family.

[71] After the war, the "Amis de Lille" decorated the Grand-Place for the homecoming of the 43rd Infantry Regiment in 1919,[72] with garlands of greenery, then again for the arrival of the President of the French Republic, Paul Deschanel, in 1920.

[78] At the end of the works, the grand-place became partially pedestrianized,[9] the paving of the street was redone on a sand screed[4] and the Ferris wheel made its first appearance for the Christmas market held on Place Rihour.

Composed of twenty-four identical interlocking residences enclosing an inner courtyard,[87] it was built to plans by Julien Destrée in 1652 and completed the following year.

The building's classical façade,[91] in white stone and sandstone[92] on the Place du Général-de-Gaulle side, has been listed as a historic monument since 1925.

More than two hundred years later, in 1936, the building housing the local newspaper La Voix du Nord was built on its right-hand side.

[112] Before the construction of the "Vieille Bourse", traders and industrialists met every day except Sunday lunchtimes and evenings on the square, near the Fountain of Change and the Chapel of the Ardents.

[124] On Mardi Gras (Shrove Tuesday) each year, the newly appointed king was presented with a thorny branch in the market square, as a reminder of his duty to honor Saint Thorn.

[123] In October 1781, a circular temple was built opposite the Grande Garde, in honor of the birth of Louis XVI's eldest son.

That same year, for the first time, a Ferris wheel was installed on Lille's main square during the Christmas market held on Place Rihour.

[134][135] For the sake of consistency,[136] parasols, screens, chairs, tables, menu stands, planters, and outdoor lighting, as well as their locations, are regulated.

[137] In the past, the army used to hold demonstrations of strength,[138] exercises, and parades here every day except Wednesdays and Saturdays, when there was a huge market.

[17] For the inauguration of the Goddess Column on October 8, 1845, the troops marched in front of the monument, and Bengal lights illuminated the square in the evening.