Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port grounds. The town has traditionally been an important point on the Way of St. James, the pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela, as it stands at the base of the Roncevaux Pass across the Pyrenees. "Pied-de-Port" means 'foot of the pass' in Pyrenean French. The routes from Paris, Vézelay and Le Puy-en-Velay meet at Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port and it was the pilgrims' last stop before the arduous mountain crossing. In 1998, the "Porte St-Jacques" (city gate) was added to the UNESCO World Heritage Sites as part of the sites along the Routes of Santiago de Compostela in France. The cobbled rue de la
Pied-Noir I had a religion, and I thought I had a country.” Messud noted that the novelist Albert Camus, himself a "pied-noir", had often written of his love for the sea-shores and mountains of Algeria, declaring Algeria was a place that was a part of his soul, feelings that she noted that mirrored those of other "pied-noirs" for whom Algeria was the only home they had ever known. The "Pied-Noir" community has adopted, as both an unofficial anthem and as a symbol of its identity, Captain Félix Boyer's 1943 version of "Le Chant des Africains" (lit. "The Song of the Africans").