Bizerte
[key], Arab. Banzart, city, N Tunisia, on the
Mediterranean Sea. It is an important port, strategically situated near the
narrowest part of the Mediterranean. The city also has processing
industries. Bizerte was founded by Phoenicians. While the French ruled
Tunisia, they improved and fortified the outer harbor and deepened the
channel to the Lake of Bizerte, where there are naval works and the town of
Menzel Bourgiba. The White Russian fleet (1920) and the Spanish republican
fleet (1939) were interned at Bizerte. It was a German base in World War II
and was heavily bombed (1943) by the Allies. Tunisian insistence that France
evacuate its naval installations at Bizerte led to violent confrontations in
1961; the base was turned over to Tunisia in 1963.
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