| La Ferté-sous-Jouarre | |
| Commune Status: | Commune |
| Image Coat Of Arms: | Blason ville fr La Ferté-sous-Jouarre (Seine-et-Marne).svg |
| Coordinates: | 48.9497°N 3.1303°W |
| Insee: | 77183 |
| Postal Code: | 77260 |
| Arrondissement: | Meaux |
| Canton: | La Ferté-sous-Jouarre |
| Mayor: | Ugo Pezzetta[1] |
| Term: | 2020–2026 |
| Intercommunality: | CA Coulommiers Pays de Brie |
| Elevation Min M: | 50 |
| Elevation Max M: | 181 |
| Area Km2: | 10.06 |
La Ferté-sous-Jouarre (in French la fɛʁte su ʒwaʁ/) is a commune in the Seine-et-Marne département in the Île-de-France region in north-central France.
It is located at a crossing point over the river Marne between Meaux and Château-Thierry.
This area of France has frequently been a site of warfare. In 1819, British naval officer, Norwich Duff (1792–1862), Edinburgh born, recorded a note on La Ferté. The Bourbon Restoration had apparently dampened the Napoleonic road building boom, as evidenced by unused milestones. Construction projects had rebuilt some facilities destroyed in the wars with Britain and other Powers.
La Ferté is famous for millstones used for milling flour. Some have even been found in England.
Among notable residents, the artist Émile Bayard was born in this town (1837). The Irish avant-garde writer, dramatist, poet and nobel prize winner Samuel Beckett lived in the neighboring hamlet of Mollien for 36 years. The town's library and secondary school are named after him. André the Giant, three times Worldwide Wrestling champion, icon of the André the Giant Has a Posse (aka Obey) street art project grew up in the local canton. As a child, the American writer and filmmaker Oliver Stone used to spend all his summer holiday at his French maternal grands-parents' hotel in La Ferté-sous-Jouarre.
The area was invaded and occupied by the Germans from the beginning of the Great War, which led to considerable damage and casualties. After the war, on 14 August 1921, the town of La Ferté-sous-Jouarre was awarded the War Cross with the following citation:
On the south-western edge of the town, on the south bank of the river Marne, is the La Ferté-sous-Jouarre memorial, commemorating more than 3000 British soldiers from the Great War with no known grave. They died in fighting in the area against the Germans.
Inhabitants of La Ferté-sous-Jouarre are called Fertois in French.