| Saint-Malo | |
|---|---|
| Country | [image] France |
| Région | Bretagne |
| Département | Ille-et-Vilaine (Sous-préfecture) |
| Arrondissement | Saint-Malo |
| Canton | Chief town of 2 cantons |
| INSEE Code | 35288 |
| Postal code | 35400 |
| Mayor Term of office | René Couanau Current |
| Intercommunality | communauté d'agglomération du Pays de Saint-Malo |
| Longitude | |
| Latitude | |
| Altitude | average: minimum: 0 maximum: |
| Area | 36.58 km² |
| Population without double-counting | 50,675 (1999) |
| Population density | 1,385 pers/km² |
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Saint-Malo is a walled port city in Brittany in northern France on the English Channel. It is a a Sous-préfecture of the Ille-et-Vilaine département.
Saint-Malo has 50,000 inhabitants, but that number can increase to up to 200,000 in the summer tourist season. With the suburbs, the population is about 135,000.
In later centuries it became notorious as the home of a fierce breed of pirate-mariners, who were never quite under anyone's control but their own; for 4 years from 1590, Saint-Malo even declared itself to be an independent Republic. The Corsairs of Saint-Malo not only forced English ships passing up the Channel to pay tribute, but also brought wealth from further afield. Jacques Cartier, who sailed the St Lawrence river and visited the sites of Québec City and Montréal - and is thus credited as the discoverer of Canada, lived in and sailed from Saint-Malo, as did the first colonists to settle the Falklands – hence the islands' Argentinian name, Las Malvinas, from the French Malouins.
Saint Malo was the site of an Anglo-French summit which lead to a significant agreement regarding European defence policy. British Prime Minister Tony Blair and French President Jacques Chirac stated that "the [European] Union must have the capacity for autonomous action, backed up by credible military forces, the means to decide to use them, and a readiness to do so, in order to respond to international crises".