Fort du Portalet

The fort, built by order of Louis Philippe I, guards the border of the Pyrenees and protects access to the Col du Somport.

Fort du Portalet is located on a cliff face underneath the Chemin de la Mâture (literally "The Mast Road") and overlooks the torrential river Gave d'Aspe.

During World War II, the Vichy regime arrested and interned Léon Blum, Édouard Daladier, Paul Reynaud, Georges Mandel and Maurice Gamelin as political prisoners at the fort.

Mandel was taken to Paris, where he was executed in 1944 by the Milice in retaliation for the assassination earlier that year of Philippe Henriot, a Vichy official, by the Resistance.

After the war, Philippe Pétain, the head of the Vichy government, was imprisoned in the fort from 15 August to 16 November 1945.