SOLEIL SOLEIL SOLEIL ("Sun" in French) is a synchrotron facility near Paris, France. It performed its first acceleration of electrons on May 14, 2006. The name "SOLEIL" is a backronym for "Source optimisée de lumière d’énergie intermédiaire du LURE" (LURE optimised intermediary energy light source), LURE meaning "Laboratoire pour l'utilisation du rayonnement électromagnétique". The facility is run by a civil corporation held by the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) and the French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission (CEA), two French national research agencies. It is located in Saint-Aubin in the Essonne département, a south-western suburb of Paris, near
Cité Soleil force. During the mid-1990s, the city's population was terrorized by armed gangs which drove the local police out; this situation prevented officials aid workers from intervening to provide help. In 1999, Cité Soleil was set on fire by a gang and at least 50 shacks were burned. By 2002, the violence escalated as the gangs began warring with each other in addition to preying on ordinary people. Many inhabitants had temporarily left to escape the turmoil. In a series of operations from 2004 to 2007, UN peacekeepers tried to seize control from the gangs in Cité Soleil and end the