Neauphle-le-Château
Neauphle-le-Château is a commune in the Yvelines department in the Île-de-France region in north-central France.
History
Neauphle-le-Château gained international fame in 1978 when, on 8 October, Iranian Islamic leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini rented and moved into a house there following his exile by the regime of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi in the midst of the Iranian Revolution, and after being deported from Iraq where he was taking refuge amongst the Shia community.The Ayatollah continued to reside there until the following year when he returned to Iran following the collapse of the Shah's regime and later became Iran's Supreme Leader. Due to the Ayatollah's time residing in Neauphle-le-Château, the street in Tehran on which the French Embassy in Iran is located and was previously known as Faranseh street, is now renamed after the village. The small town of Kahak south of the city of Qom was also renamed "Nufeloshato" in the memory of the French village. The property where he lived still stands at 67 Route de Chevreuse.
It was also the home of Deanna Durbin, a Hollywood actress, until her death on 17 April 2013. The writer Marguerite Duras lived here in a house which she described as the one in which she had lived the longest.