François Joseph Fournier (6 December 1857 - 13 January 1935) was a

self-taught Autodidacticism (also autodidactism) or self-education (also self-learning, self-study and self-teaching) is the practice of education without the guidance of schoolmasters (i.e., teachers, professors, institutions). Overview Autodi ...

Belgian adventurer and

entrepreneur Entrepreneurship is the creation or extraction of economic value in ways that generally entail beyond the minimal amount of risk (assumed by a traditional business), and potentially involving values besides simply economic ones. An entreprene ...

who explored

Mexico Mexico, officially the United Mexican States, is a country in North America. It is the northernmost country in Latin America, and borders the United States to the north, and Guatemala and Belize to the southeast; while having maritime boundar ...

and the island of Porquerolles. He was born into a family of modest means, in Clabecq,

Belgium Belgium, officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. Situated in a coastal lowland region known as the Low Countries, it is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeas ...

and died on Porquerolles. Fournier purchased the entire island of Porquerolles in 1912, apparently as a wedding present for his wife. He planted 200

hectare The hectare (; SI symbol: ha) is a non-SI metric unit of area equal to a square with 100-metre sides (1 hm2), that is, square metres (), and is primarily used in the measurement of land. There are 100 hectares in one square kilometre. ...

s (about 500

acre The acre ( ) is a Unit of measurement, unit of land area used in the Imperial units, British imperial and the United States customary units#Area, United States customary systems. It is traditionally defined as the area of one Chain (unit), ch ...

s) of vineyards which produced a wine that was among the first to be classed des Côtes de Provence. On 22 February 1912, at an auction, he bought the island of Porquerolles for the sum of one million and one hundred francs. He obtained French nationality on 28 June 1914. François Joseph Fournier developed the island of Porquerolles with the model he had used in the Colonizadora: development of wine and fruit crops, creation of a cooperative, establishment of a flotilla of boats linking with the Tour Fondue on the peninsula of Giens. François Joseph Fournier is a graduate of the

Conservatoire national des arts et métiers The (; ; abbr. CNAM) is an AMBA-accredited French ''grande école'' and '' grand établissement''. It is a member of the '' Conférence des Grandes écoles'', which is an equivalent to the Ivy League schools in the United States, Oxbridge in th ...

.L’île de Porquerolles en cadeau de mariage
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References

Bibliography

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External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Fournier, Francois Joseph 1857 births 1935 deaths Belgian businesspeople Belgian explorers People from Tubize Walloon people Conservatoire national des arts et métiers alumni