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71-684: The metropolis is a member of the Nantes - Saint-Nazaire and Loire-Bretagne metropolitan clusters, as well as the Eurocities network, of which it chaired the Culture Forum in 2009. The Communauté urbaine de Nantes was founded in 2001. On January 1, 2015, the Metropolis replaced the Urban Community in accordance with a law of January 2014. The Metropolitan Council consists of 97 members, one of them being

142-615: A Breton language term meaning ' stone table ' but doubt has been cast on this, and the OED describes its origin as "Modern French". A book on Cornish antiquities from 1754 said that the current term in the Cornish language for a cromlech was tolmen ('hole of stone') and the OED says that "There is reason to think that this was the term inexactly reproduced by Latour d'Auvergne [sic] as dolmen , and misapplied by him and succeeding French archaeologists to

213-433: A college for boys), Sainte-Therese (historically a college for girls). The high schools educate 6,000 pupils into 11 lycées, with the mainstream education and technical school Aristide Briand having some 2,500 pupils, one of the largest lycée of France; an experimental lycée, public lycée managed jointly by the teachers and the pupils; the private lycée of Saint-Louis mainstream education; the hotel private lycée Sainte-Anne;

284-507: A constant target of Allied air forces, in the face of determined Luftwaffe fighter opposition to raids by United States Army Air Forces Eighth Air Force bombers. On 3 January 1943 Colonel Curtis LeMay led 85 Boeing B-17 Flying Fortresses of the 1st Bombardment Wing against the U-boat pens at Saint-Nazaire, on the Eighth Air Force's sixth raid against the facility. LeMay also introduced

355-801: A large flat horizontal capstone or "table". Most date from the Late Neolithic period (4000–3000 BCE ) and were sometimes covered with earth or smaller stones to form a tumulus (burial mound). Small pad-stones may be wedged between the cap and supporting stones to achieve a level appearance. In many instances, the covering has eroded away, leaving only the stone "skeleton". In Sumba (Indonesia), dolmens are still commonly built (about 100 dolmens each year) for collective graves according to lineage. The traditional village of Wainyapu has some 1,400 dolmens. The word dolmen entered archaeology when Théophile Corret de la Tour d'Auvergne used it to describe megalithic tombs in his Origines gauloises (1796) using

426-536: A memo to General John Pershing offering a compromise: American medical authorities would control designated brothels operated solely for American soldiers. Pershing passed the proposal to Raymond Fosdick , who on giving it to Secretary of War Newton D. Baker promptly responded: "For God's sake, Raymond, don't show this to the president or he'll stop the war." Only after the signing of the Armistice in November 1918, when

497-664: A miracle, was deterred and the village thenceforth took the name of Sanctus Nazarius de Sinuario. After this point, the history of Saint-Nazaire, like much of Europe during the Dark Ages, is not well documented. Battles occurred, such as in 1380 when Jehan d'Ust defended the city in the name of John V, Duke of Brittany (known in France as Jean IV) against the Castilian fleet during the Hundred Years' War . After this time, Saint-Nazaire became

568-648: A second part such as de l'alarb ('of the Arab'), del/de moro/s ('of the Moor/s'), del lladre ('of the thief'), del dimoni ('of the devil'), d'en Rotllà/Rotllan/Rotlan/Roldan ('of Roland '),. In the Basque Country , they are attributed to the jentilak , a race of giants. The etymology of the German : Hünenbett, Hünengrab and Dutch : hunebed – with Hüne / hune meaning 'giant' – all evoke

639-471: A variety of names in other languages, including Galician and Portuguese : anta , Bulgarian : Долмени , romanized :  Dolmeni , German : Hünengrab/Hünenbett , Afrikaans and Dutch : hunebed , Basque : trikuharri , Abkhaz : Adamra , Adyghe : Ispun Danish and Norwegian : dysse , Swedish : dös , Korean : 고인돌 , romanized :  goindol (go-in = 'propped' + dol = 'stone') , and Hebrew : גַלעֵד . Granja

710-511: Is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Saint-Nazaire Saint-Nazaire ( French: [sɛ̃ nazɛːʁ] ; Breton : Sant-Nazer/Señ Neñseir ; Gallo : Saint-Nazère/Saint-Nazaer ) is a commune in the Loire-Atlantique department in western France, in traditional Brittany . The town has a major harbour on the right bank of the Loire estuary , near

781-825: Is however relatively variable from one year to the next. The sunshine is 1,892 hours a year. Saint-Nazaire receives mainly southwestern sector winds related to the Atlantic depressions and northeastern sector winds when the weather is more stable. The annual average wind of 4.5 m / s and there are 60 days per year of strong wind. The primary schools of Saint-Nazaire (Carnot, Jean-Jaurès, Lamartine, Jules Ferry, Ferdinand Bush, Boncourt, etc.) educate nearly 8,000 pupils in 30 school complexes. The junior schools have nearly 7,000 pupils in 12 colleges: public colleges Albert Vinçon; Pierre Norange; Manon Roland; Jean de Neyman; Jean Moulin, accommodate around 1,350 pupils each. Private colleges include: Saint-Louis (1,000 pupils, boarding school; historically

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852-426: Is more in line with that of France as a whole. The major industries are: Saint Nazaire hosts the first French offshore wind farm with 80 wind turbines that will produce enough power to cover consumptions of around 700,000 people. Dolmen A dolmen ( / ˈ d ɒ l m ɛ n / ) or portal tomb is a type of single-chamber megalithic tomb , usually consisting of two or more upright megaliths supporting

923-541: Is used in Portugal , Galicia , and some parts of Spain . The rarer forms anta and ganda also appear. In Catalan-speaking areas , they are known simply as dolmen , but also by a variety of folk names, including cova ('cave'), caixa ('crate' or 'coffin'), taula ('table'), arca ('chest'), cabana ('hut'), barraca ('hut'), llosa ('slab'), llosa de jaça ('pallet slab'), roca ('rock') or pedra ('stone'), usually combined with

994-512: The Area bombing directive . To minimize civilian casualties during air attacks, the Allies devised a plan to force an evacuation of the town. For three days in 1943, British Royal Air Force and American aircraft dropped scores of leaflets warning the population of a planned fire-bombing raid. At the end of the third day, the raid came and burned the entire city to the ground. Casualties were light as most of

1065-498: The Clyde -built cruise liner, later converted to troopship, RMS  Lancastria , which was attacked and sunk by German Junkers Ju 88 bombers, mainly from Kampfgeschwader 30 , taking with her around 4,000 victims. This is the worst disaster in British maritime history and the worst loss of life for British forces in the whole of World War II. Winston Churchill banned all news coverage of

1136-625: The Golan Heights , Jordan , Lebanon , Syria , and southeast Turkey . Dolmens in the Levant belong to a different, unrelated tradition to that of Europe, although they are often treated "as part of a trans-regional phenomenon that spanned the Taurus Mountains to the Arabian Peninsula ." In the Levant, they are of Early Bronze rather than Late Neolithic age. They are mostly found along

1207-551: The Namnetes tribe, which (according to the Greek navigator Pytheas ) was the second-largest Gaulish city, after Massilia (now Marseille ). Archeology suggests that the area has been inhabited since at least the Neolithic period, as evidenced by the presence of monuments like the tumulus of Dissignac , the dolmen located in the centre of the present-day city, and ancient bronzes found in

1278-519: The National Defense at Saint-Nazaire, and marched out with his contingent, though they saw no active service due to lack of ammunition (their private store having been commandeered by the state). In 1873, he moved to the bar of Rennes , following the establishment of the Third Republic in 1871. On 30 March 1894, a strike occurred at the forging mills of Trignac in opposition to a reduction of

1349-654: The Pont de Saint-Nazaire , which crosses the Loire. Paris is then accessed via the A10/A11 in Nantes. Valves, Lorient, Quimper and Brest are accessed via the N165. A project to review a second crossing of the Loire between Nantes and Saint Nazaire is being considered, planned to be constructed and operational by 2025. Saint-Nazaire railway station is served by both the TGV and regional trains and buses of

1420-515: The TER Pays de la Loire . TGV (high speed train) connection to Paris, Lyon , Marseille , Lille , and Strasbourg , with trains to Paris via the LGV Atlantique taking just over 2 hours. TER Pays de la Loire provides links to Nantes , Angers , Le Mans , La Roche sur Yon , and other regional cities and towns. Saint-Nazaire airport is located 5 km (3 mi) south-east of Saint-Nazaire, in

1491-459: The combat box defensive formation, echeloning three-plane elements within a squadron , and squadrons within a group, to concentrate defensive firepower against fighter opposition. Only 76 aircraft found and hit the target, and during the mission seven bombers were shot down and 47 damaged. As a result of the raid, on 14 January 1943 under directive (S.46239/?? A.C.A.S. Ops), the Allies implemented incendiary bomb tactics against U-boat pens, under

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1562-517: The commune of Montoir-de-Bretagne . It has an annual capacity of approximately 150,000 passengers, and is the operational and maintenance base for Eagle Aviation France . International travel is via Nantes Atlantique Airport , the biggest airport in western France, linking with several French and European cities as well as Montreal in Canada (seasonally) and some cities in North Africa. A new airport

1633-552: The cromlech ". Nonetheless it has now replaced cromlech as the usual English term in archaeology, when the more technical and descriptive alternatives are not used. The later Cornish term was quoit – an English-language word for an object with a hole through the middle preserving the original Cornish language term of tolmen – the name of another dolmen-like monument is in fact Mên-an-Tol 'stone with hole' (Standard Written Form: Men An Toll .) In Irish Gaelic , dolmens are called Irish : dolmain . Dolmens are known by

1704-566: The sinking of Bismarck , the need for the Allies to take the Joubert dry dock out of operation was increased. On 28 March 1942, a force of 611 British Commandos and the Royal Navy launched the St Nazaire Raid against the shipyards of Saint-Nazaire, codenamed Operation Chariot . An obsolete American-built destroyer HMS  Campbeltown was used as a ram-ship loaded with explosives. It and

1775-478: The Atlantic Ocean. The town is at the south of the second-largest swamp in France, called "la Brière ". Given its location, Saint-Nazaire has a long tradition of fishing and shipbuilding . The Chantiers de l'Atlantique , one of the largest shipyards in the world, constructed notable ocean liners such as SS  Normandie , SS  France , RMS  Queen Mary 2 and the cruise ship MS  Symphony of

1846-677: The Bronze Age to the early Iron Age, with about 40,000 to be found throughout the peninsula. In 2000, the dolmen groups of Jukrim-ri and Dosan-ri in Gochang , Hyosan-ri and Daesin-ri in Hwasun , and Bujeong-ri, Samgeori and Osang-ri in Ganghwa gained World Cultural Heritage status. (See Gochang, Hwasun and Ganghwa Dolmen Sites .) They are mainly distributed along the West Sea coastal area and on large rivers from

1917-529: The Commandos succeeded in destroying the gates and machinery of the Joubert drydock, preventing its further use by the Germans during the war. Of the 600+ navy and commando personnel, 220 returned, half were wounded. Five Victoria Crosses and 69 other decorations were awarded. The Joubert dry dock was not brought back into operation until 1948. The U-boat threat to supply convoys across the Atlantic made Saint-Nazaire

1988-581: The Germans could no longer conduct major submarine operations from the bases without a supply line, the SHAEF commander, U.S. General Dwight D. Eisenhower decided to simply bypass these ports, and the Allied armies focused their resources on the invasion of Germany. Saint-Nazaire and the other two German "pockets" remained under German control until after the last day of the war in Europe, 8 May 1945. The town of St. Nazaire

2059-566: The Guérande peninsula. The eastern part of the town is on the alluvial terrain between the Brière and the Loire estuary. The western part, more extensive, corresponds to the extension of the hillside of Guérande: the relief is hilly and of higher altitude, where one finds a granite and metamorphic base. Geologically, Saint-Nazaire is located in the Armorican massif. In close proximity to the Atlantic Ocean,

2130-571: The Jordan Rift Valley's eastern escarpment, and in the hills of the Galilee, in clusters near Early Bronze I proto-urban settlements (3700–3000 BCE), additionally restricted by geology to areas allowing the quarrying of slabs of megalithic size. In the Levant, geological constraints led to a local burial tradition with a variety of tomb forms, dolmens being one of them. Dolmens were built in Korea from

2201-818: The Liaoning region of China (the Liaodong Peninsula ) to Jeollanam-do . In North Korea, they are concentrated around the Taedong and Jaeryeong Rivers . In South Korea, they are found in dense concentrations in river basins, such as the Han and Nakdong Rivers , and in the west coast area ( Boryeong in South Chungcheong Province, Buan in North Jeolla Province, and Jeollanam-do. They are mainly found on sedimentary plains, where they are grouped in rows parallel to

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2272-524: The Loire region is Donges , to the east of Saint-Nazaire. According to the late-6th-century writer Gregory of Tours , the Roman Church sheltered the remains of the martyr Nazarius in a local basilica. According to legend, the Breton chief Waroch II sent an emissary to seize these relics. The plot was foiled when the emissary fractured his skull upon the lintel of the church door. Waroch, interpreting this as

2343-493: The Saint-Nazaire casino went bankrupt and was resold to the town of Nantes: the site was redeveloped in 1935 as the first home of the current Saint-Louis school. As a result of the national general strike of June 1936, to ensure completion of the nationally prestigious project SS Normandie , the government nationalised the various private shipyards into one state-owned entity, the 1861-founded Chantiers de l'Atlantique . After

2414-594: The Seas , the largest passenger ship in the world until 2022. Saint-Nazaire was a small village until the Industrial Revolution but became a large town in the second half of the 19th century, thanks to the construction of railways and the growth of the seaport. Saint-Nazaire progressively replaced upstream Nantes as the main haven on the Loire estuary. As a major submarine base for the Kriegsmarine , Saint-Nazaire

2485-497: The U-boat pens. Tours of the submarine are available to the public. After the construction of SS  France in 1961, the last Compagnie Générale Transatlantique liner and the subsequent closure of the Suez Canal , Chantiers de l'Atlantique began building large oil tankers, including Batillus , Bellamya , Pierre Guillaumat and Prairial . A new dry dock (Basin C) was planned for

2556-488: The United States Army could no longer plead military necessity as grounds for curtailing leave, did venereal disease rates among United States Army troops rise quickly. The post-war period brought about a period of economic depression for the shipbuilders, who consequently diversified into building seaplanes from 1922. In 1926 the district of Paimbœuf was merged with the district of Saint-Nazaire, thus reinforcing

2627-455: The West". In 1802, a road was built to develop the port, which extended by 1835 to a breakwater with a navigational lighthouse at its end. The development included new basins for ships to unload to barges that carried goods further up the river. This development moved the town into the area of the city which is now called the district of "Little Morocco". This development made the town the base for

2698-431: The absence of clear evidence for this. Human remains, sometimes accompanied by artefacts, have been found in or close to the dolmens which could be scientifically dated using radiocarbon dating . However, it has been impossible to prove that these remains date from the time when the stones were originally set in place. Early in the 20th century, before the advent of scientific dating, it was proposed by Harold Peake that

2769-496: The city became an important debarkment port of Allied troops, particularly in the latter stages for the United States Army . When they entered the war in 1917, they developed the town and port infrastructure, by adding additional drinking water storage ponds for the town's water treatment plants, and a refrigeration terminal to the docks for shipment and storage of meat and dairy products to supply their troops. However,

2840-483: The civilians had heeded the warning and fled to the safety of the countryside but after that point, except for the self-contained U-boat base, Saint-Nazaire remained abandoned until the end of the war. After D-day and the liberation of most of France in 1944, German troops in Saint-Nazaire's submarine base refused to surrender, and they holed up (as did their counterparts in the La Rochelle and Lorient bases). Since

2911-519: The climate of Saint-Nazaire is, as with the rest of the Loire-Atlantique, of temperate oceanic type, with Cfb designation in Köppen climate classification . This climate is very much influenced by the Loire estuary. The winters are mild, and summer is warm. Snowfall is rare, but rain is frequent (116 days a year with precipitation) but not very intense, the annual rainfall being 789 mm. Precipitation

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2982-534: The construction of tankers over 1,000,000 tonnes but this fell through with the reopening of the Suez Canal. RMS  Queen Mary 2 was constructed at Chantiers de l'Atlantique in 2003. The town of Saint-Nazaire is located on the north bank of the Loire estuary (its territory includes the tip of Chémoulin which marks the end of the estuary), 50 km west of Nantes. It is near the marshes of Brière, an important regional natural park with many animal and plant species,

3053-475: The direction of the river or stream. Those found in hilly areas are grouped in the direction of the hill. Also called Muniyaras, these dolmens belong to the Iron Age . These dolmenoids were burial chambers made of four stones placed on edge and covered by a fifth stone called the cap stone. Some of these Dolmenoids contain several burial chambers, while others have a quadrangle scooped out in laterite and lined on

3124-457: The disaster on learning of it and it remains largely forgotten by history. A Lancastria memorial is located near the U-boat pens in Saint-Nazaire. The ball turret gunner of an American B-17F bomber fell 20,000 ft (6,100 m) onto the glass roof of the train station, even though his parachute had been destroyed by German flak while still in his plane. The US airman, Alan Magee , survived

3195-561: The dolmens of western Europe were evidence of cultural diffusion from the eastern Mediterranean. This "prospector theory" surmised that Aegean-origin prospectors had moved westward in search of metal ores, starting before 2200 BCE, and had taken the concept of megalithic architecture with them. Dolmens can be found in the Levant , some along the Jordan Rift Valley ( Upper Galilee in Israel ,

3266-433: The existence of a small fleet of fisheries and fishing vessels. Saint-Nazaire suffered heavily from the downsizing of shipbuilding activity in western Europe in the 1960s and 1970s, after the completion of the national passenger liner, SS France . For a long time in the 1980s, Saint-Nazaire remained an economically depressed area with unemployment rates above 20%. Today, the local economy is more diversified and its situation

3337-531: The fall. A German military surgeon was able to save his nearly severed arm. The airman credited his survival to a prayer to God as he recovered consciousness during his fall. Following the surrender of France to German forces later in June 1940, the port immediately became a base of operations for the Kriegsmarine and was as such the target of Allied operations. A heavily fortified U-boat Saint-Nazaire submarine base

3408-408: The first transatlantic telegraph lines were installed from France to South America, coming ashore at Saint-Nazaire. 1862 also saw the construction of major shipbuilding facilities, including those of Chantier Scott , which launched the first French metal-hulled ships. In 1868, Saint-Nazaire became a sub-prefecture of the town of Savenay . A second dock basin was created at Penhoët in 1881, to allow

3479-408: The handling of larger ships, but a lock gate built to access it cut the town in two, thus creating Old Saint-Nazaire and an artificial island called "Little Morocco". In early 1870, Nantes-born Pierre Waldeck-Rousseau joined the bar in Saint-Nazaire. In September he became, in spite of his youth, secretary to the municipal commission temporarily appointed to carry on the town's business. He organized

3550-703: The image of giants buried ( bett / bed / grab = 'bed/grave') there. Of other Celtic languages , Welsh cromlech was borrowed into English and quoit is commonly used in English in Cornwall . It remains unclear when, why and by whom the earliest dolmens were made. The oldest known are found in Western Europe , dating from c. 7,000 years ago. Archaeologists still do not know who erected these dolmens, which makes it difficult to know why they did it. They are generally all regarded as tombs or burial chambers, despite

3621-509: The influence of the city on the south bank of the Loire River. Although having built SS  Paris , between 1913 and 1921, and SS  Île de France between 1925 and 1926, as a result of the 1930s Great Depression the French government commissioned a series of state programs to aid national economic activity. The state-owned shipping company Compagnie Générale Transatlantique commissioned

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3692-472: The invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany 's Wehrmacht army at the start of World War II , the combined forces of the French Army and the British Expeditionary Force failed to hold the oncoming onslaught. As part of Operation Aerial , Saint-Nazaire, like Dunkirk , became an evacuation point to England for the British, with those embarking including the writer John Renshaw Starr . On 17 June 1940 an estimated 9,000 British Army soldiers were embarked aboard

3763-462: The left side of river Pambar as is evident from the usage of neatly dressed granite slabs for the dolmens. At least one of them has a perfectly circular hole of 28 cm diameter inside the underground chamber. This region has several types of dolmens. Large number of them are overground with about 70–90 cm height. Another type has a height 140–170 cm. There is an overground dolmen with double length up to 350 cm. Fragments of burial urns are also available in

3834-447: The passenger steamships of the Nantes–Saint-Nazaire line, as well as making the town the alternative port for ships which could not access Nantes . In 1856, the first wet dock was dug in "Halluard City", making it possible for ships to moor and turn. This led to the construction of the town's first railway connection. In 1857, the Chemin de Fer de Paris à Orléans (railroad company of Orléans ) connected Saint-Nazaire to Nantes. In 1862,

3905-402: The presence of legal brothels ( Maisons Tolérée ) resulted in a diplomatic incident. As a result of strict reformist public health concerns at home, the American Expeditionary Force placed the Maisons Tolérée off limits, resulting in a dispute between the town's brothel owners backed by the mayor, versus the US Army forces. With the dispute escalating, Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau sent

3976-535: The president, currently Johanna Rolland , the mayor of Nantes. The 24 communes of the métropole are: Nantes Métropole encompasses only the center of the metropolitan area of Nantes (see infobox at Nantes article for the metropolitan area). Communes further away from the center of the metropolitan area have formed their own intercommunal structures, such as: 47°13′02″N 1°33′14″W  /  47.2172°N 1.5539°W  / 47.2172; -1.5539 This Loire-Atlantique geographical article

4047-507: The private of mainstream education and technological college Our-Lady-in Espérance. The Cité Scolaire of Saint-Nazaire is one of largest of France, with nearly 4,000 high-school pupils. The University of Saint-Nazaire is a college of the University of Nantes , the second largest university in France with approximately 35,000 students, including nearly 5,000 on the university campus of Saint-Nazaire. The Route nationale N165 /N161 ( E60 route ) connects Saint-Nazaire to Nantes and Rennes via

4118-430: The province of Brittany. At the beginning of the 19th century, the port consisted only of one simple harbour. As the town was so far inland, its main economy was not based on commercial fishing but on its strategic location as the lowest possible navigation point for large ships and on supplying pilots for navigation further up the Loire. In 1800, the parish of Saint-Nazaire had 3,216 inhabitants. The modern Saint-Nazaire

4189-416: The roof is an exhibition about Saint-Nazaire. The huge Joubert drydock built for SS Normandie was the only port on the Atlantic capable of servicing the German battleships Bismarck and Tirpitz . This made the port strategically important to both the Axis Powers and the Allies during World War II. After Operation Rheinübung on 18–27 May 1941, which resulted in the sinking of HMS  Hood and

4260-413: The seat of a parish extending from Penhoët to Pornichet , part of the Viscountcy of Saint-Nazaire . Like the whole of Brittany, Saint-Nazaire formed part of the Duchy of Brittany until 1532, when it was annexed by France. In 1756, a fort was built on the order of the governor of Brittany to protect the town, which by then had 600 inhabitants. Until the French Revolution , Saint-Nazaire belonged to

4331-411: The second largest wetland in France after the Camargue. According to INSEE , Saint-Nazaire is the commune-center of an urban unit (commonly: agglomeration) which counted 186,760 inhabitants in 2018, gathering 17 communes of the Loire estuary. This unit is the urban center of the urban area of Saint-Nazaire (24 communes), which had 213,675 inhabitants in 2018 and extending over Brière and almost all of

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4402-403: The ship builders of Saint-Nazaire to construct a new large passenger ship, which as a result between 1928 and 1934 created the Albert Caquot –engineered the Louis Joubert dry dock  – at 1,200 m × 60 m (3,940 ft × 200 ft), the largest of its kind in the world at the time – necessary to be able to accommodate the construction of SS  Normandie . In 1932,

4473-448: The sides with granite slabs. These are also covered with cap stones. Dozens of Dolmens around the area of old Siva temple (Thenkasinathan Temple) at Kovilkadavu on the banks of the River Pambar and also around the area called Pius nagar, and rock paintings on the south-western slope of the plateau overlooking the river have attracted visitors. Apart from the dolmens of Stone Age, several dolmens of Iron Age exist in this region especially on

4544-419: The spelling dolmin (the current spelling was introduced about a decade later and had become standard in French by about 1885). The Oxford English Dictionary ( OED ) does not mention dolmin in English and gives its first citation for dolmen from a book on Brittany in 1859, describing the word as "The French term, used by some English authors, for a cromlech ...". The name was supposedly derived from

4615-407: The vicinity. According to the 15th-century chronicler Alain Bouchart , Brutus of Troy , the mythical ancestor of the Bretons, travelled to Saint-Nazaire to set foot upon the new homeland of his people. Historical accounts note that at the end of the Roman Empire , some Britons colonized the Loire estuary and later the peninsula containing Guérande . The farthest extent of the Breton language in

4686-412: The work force. What had seemed a small dispute escalated after a shooting in Fourmies , resulting in the town getting its national nickname of "Red City". Socialists flocked to the town in defense of the striking workers, joining in the declaration of the "Fusillade de Fourmies". In 1900, the commune of Pornichet was created by separating from the larger commune of Saint-Nazaire. During World War I ,

4757-399: Was built by Organisation Todt shortly after occupation, with a 9 m-thick (30 ft) concrete ceiling capable of withstanding almost any bomb in use at the time. The base provided a home during the war to many of the best-known U-boat staff, including: The base stands today as its extremely sturdy construction makes demolition uneconomical. The base is now used by cafes, a bar and on

4828-430: Was created by the administration of Napoleon III . The population of 3,216 in 1800 shows its battered history, with a mainly local (Brière), of Lower Brittany (of Morbihan in the Finistère-south), and minor representation from most other areas of France. From this point forward the population of Saint-Nazaire experienced exponential growth, which was reflected in its nickname of "Little Breton California", or " Liverpool of

4899-438: Was planned that was to be situated 30 km (19 mi) to the north-west of Nantes in the commune of Notre-Dame-des-Landes . Called Aéroport du Grand Ouest , it was officially cancelled in 2018. The economy of the city is founded on the activity of the port, including export of manufactured goods but also on the services, being given sizeable size of the city. Commercial fishing has almost completely disappeared in spite of

4970-404: Was rebuilt in the late 1940s and 1950s in a minimalist functional style. One of the last of these buildings to be completed was the Hôtel de Ville which was completed in February 1960. The submarine base was used by the French Navy from 1945 to 1948. It then came under the control of various chemical companies and shipbuilders. As of 2016 , the French diesel submarine Espadon is moored within

5041-448: Was subject to a successful British raid in 1942 and was heavily bombed by the Allies until 1945. Being one of the Atlantic pockets , Saint-Nazaire was one of the last territories in Europe to be liberated from German occupation, on 11 May 1945. The town was one of the most damaged in France during World War II . Archaeologists believe that Saint-Nazaire is built upon the remnants of Corbilo , an Armorican Gaulish city populated by

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