Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Toulon was overcome by the Germans and
Nice was occupied by the Italians. In January
1943 the Marseille quarter of Le Panier was
razed, its 40,000 inhabitants being given less
than a day's notice to pack up and leave. Those
who didn't were sent to Nazi concentration
camps. The Resistance movement, particularly strong in Provence, was known in the re-
gion as maquis, after the Provençal scrub in which people hid.
Two months after D-Day, on 15 August 1944, Allied forces
landed on the southern coast at beaches including Le Dramont
near St-Raphaël, Cavalaire, Pampelonne and the St-Tropez
peninsula. St-Tropez and Provence's hinterland were almost
immediately liberated, but it was only after five days of heavy
fighting that Allied troops freed Marseille on 28 August (three
days after the liberation of Paris). Toulon was liberated on 26
August, a week after French troops first attacked the port.
Italian-occupied areas in the Vallée de La Roya were only
returned to France in 1947.
Fry, who turned a villa in Marseille into a refuge
for Nazi-persecuted artists and intellectuals.
Top WWII
Sites
»Plage du Dramont, Corniche
de l'Estérel
»Fort Ste-Agnès
»Rade de Toulon
»Mont Faron, Toulon
Les 30 Glorieuses: France's Golden
Decades
The 30-odd years following WWII saw unprecedented growth, creativity and optimism in
France, and Provence and the Côte d'Azur were no exception. After a false start, Cannes'
1946 international film festival heralded the return to party madness. The 1950s and
1960s saw a succession of society events: the fairy-tale marriage of Monaco's prince to
Hollywood film-legend Grace Kelly in 1956; Vadim's filming of Et Dieu Créa la Femme
( And God Created Woman ) with a smouldering Brigitte Bardot in St-Tropez the same
year; the creation of the bikini; the advent of topless sunbathing (and consequent nipple-
covering with bottle tops to prevent arrest for indecent exposure); and Miles Davis, Ella
Fitzgerald and Ray Charles appearing at the 1961 Juan-les-Pins jazz festival.
Rapid industrialisation marked the 1960s. A
string of five hydroelectric plants was con-
structed on the banks of the River Durance and
in 1964 Électricité de France (EDF), the
French electricity company, dug a canal from
Manosque to the Étang de Berre. The follow-
In 1962 Algeria negotiated its independence from
France. Over the next two years, 800,000 pieds
noirs (literally 'black feet', as Algerian-born
 
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