Tourist information -
Toulon
Toulon was half destroyed in the last war, and
its rebuilt whole is dominated by the military and associated industries.
The arsenal that Louis XIV created is today one of the major employers
of southeast France, and the port is home to the French Navy's Mediterranean
fleet. The shipbuilding yards of La Seyne have, however, been axed,
closing the book on a centuries-old and at times notorious industry.
Up until the eighteenth century, slaves and convicts were still
powering the king's galleys, and following the Revolution, convicts
were sent to Toulon with iron collars round their necks for sentences
of hard labour. After 1854 convicts were deported to the colonies
in whose conquest ships from Toulon played a major part.
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