Free Republic

The French navy has located one of its submarines that disappeared more than 50 years ago with 52 crew on board. La Minerve was discovered on the seabed in the Mediterranean off the port of Toulon. “It’s a success, a relief and a technical feat,” Florence Parly, the defence minister, tweeted. “I am thinking of the families who have waited for so long for this moment.” La Minerve was on a military exercise when it disappeared in January 1968. Repeated searches have failed to find the vessel until now. Under pressure from relatives of crew members, a fresh search was...

As German Army units overran the French Naval Base at Toulon France, French sailors and officers scuttled their ships to prevent them from falling into German hands. When it was over, 77 French Naval vessels, including 3 battleships, 3 heavy cruiser, 4 light cruisers, 15 destroyers and 12 submarines rest on the bottom of Toulon harbor.

A court in the southern city of Toulon sentenced a local man to a year in prison this week, with nine months suspended, after he racially abused a white man and later attacked him. The assailant, aged in his thirties and of north African origins, was found to have shouted "You dirty white, I'm going to smash you. This is a place for Arabs," at the victim, who was in a carpark with five friends, both male and female, on the night of May 10th. The attacker, accompanied by his own entourage and already drunk, according to TF1 television, then...