The largest of the Hyères islands, with its 7 km length and 2.5 km width from north to south - 1,250 ha -, is still very attractive. However, it is better to come outside the summer period to appreciate all its beauty. The northern coast is the most welcoming, with numerous sandy beaches bordered by pine forests and scrubland. The southern coast is more abrupt; the interior, finally, is little inhabited.At the beginning of the 20th century, in 1905, the Compagnie foncière took possession of the island with a view to transforming it into a farm, but less than 10 years later the company went bankrupt and the island was sold to François-Joseph Fournier who, having made his fortune by discovering one of the largest gold seams in Mexico, bought it for one million francs. The Fournier era then began on the island. All the inhabitants were employed in wine production (12,000 hl per year), market gardening and fruit growing (citrus fruits, grapefruits, mandarins, etc.), or as artisans or servants in the service of the Fournier company. The island practiced a kind of community life and functioned in autarky. This golden age ended with the death of François-Joseph Fournier in 1935 and the beginning of the war in 1939. Three years later, the island was occupied by the Italians and the Germans the following year. It was liberated on August 22, 1944 by Senegalese infantrymen. In 1971, the French government bought a large part of the island, thus protecting it from untimely concreting and giving it as an endowment to the Port-Cros National Park, which manages it. Since 1979, the Conservatoire botanique de Porquerolles has been safeguarding the Mediterranean flora and, thanks to the island's sanitary isolation, it has been preserving collections of genetic fruit resources, protected from the pathogens that ravage fruit trees.Today, the village of Porquerolles is almost a hamlet, with a few hotels and restaurants, a few fishermen's houses around the Place d'Armes, and a very small marina. The island offers a nice program of festivities from May until September.

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Porquerolles. Sam74100 - iStockphoto
Crique sur l'île de Porquerolles HUGO CANABI - ICONOTEC

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