AP PHOTOS: On French quarantine isles, virus echoes the past

FRIOUL ARCHIPELAGO, France (AP) — On France’s Frioul archipelago, there’s an eerie sense that history is repeating itself. The Mediterranean islands just off the teeming southern port city of Marseille served as a quarantine center during deadly epidemics in centuries past, helping to shield the French mainland from infection. Now, amid the coronavirus lockdown and with no tourists, the islands’ few residents again feel cut off, left to fend largely for themselves. Only seagulls now visit the ancient bollards where quarantined ships used to moor. France’s nationwide lockdown, which began March 17, has strangled the flow of tourists usually drawn by the archipelago’s history, quaint beachfronts and wild hills.