Var (department) France into the Zone libre, which included the Var department. The French Fleet was sabotaged in Toulon Harbour to keep it from falling into German hands. The Maquis Vallier, a group of maquis resistance fighters, was active. On 15 August 1944 American and Free French forces land at Saint-Tropez, Sainte-Maxime and Saint-Raphaël. The Free French fleet arrived at Toulon on 13 September. In the 1960s about one hundred thousand French citizens were repatriated from Algeria following the Algerian War of Independence and settled in the Var department. The department of Var has a surface area of 6,032 km, and 420
Saint-Tropez Provence. The lordship of Saint-Tropez became the prerogative of the De Suffren family. One of the most notable members of this family was the later vice-admiral Pierre André de Suffren de Saint Tropez (1729–1788), veteran of the War of the Austrian Succession, the Seven Years' War, and the American Revolutionary War. In September 1615, Saint-Tropez was visited by a delegation led by the Japanese samurai Hasekura Tsunenaga who were on their way to Rome but obliged by weather to stop in Saint-Tropez. This may have been the first contact between the French and the Japanese. The local noblemen were responsible