16.32 - Arguing Over Socca
FRANCE AS IT HAPPENS—a costume festival in Arles, a museum built over a mine shaft, and the knitter who hates to knit
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Bonjour mes ami(e)s !
It’s wonderful to have you back here with me today. Bienvenue !
In this newsletter, you’ll find these wonderful fresh articles taking you to France beyond the cliché.
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À bientôt !
Warmly,
Judy - 15.8.2026
1. MyFrenchLife™ Magazine new articles
“There are many talented contributors to MyFrenchLife Magazine and I thank all of you for sharing your experiences with us in such an engaging manner.
You take us right across France & deep into many worm-holes. We delight in discovering
and learning more about France beyond the cliché”
Merci
Judy
Our list of valued Contributors →
A reminder that ‘The Writers Room’ now resides here →
a) La Fête du Costume in Arles
by Joanna Maclennan
I can’t believe I’m about to admit that in all the time I have been living in Provence, this is only the second time that I have been to the traditional ‘Fête du Costume’ in Arles, held the first weekend in July every year. Maybe I have not been around or perhaps I am just more interested in it now.”
La Fête du Costume dates back to 1903 instigated by the famous writer Frédéric Mistral who created the Festo Vierginenco (Festival of Virgins). Young girls were invited to wear the dress and hair ribbon as a symbol of their passage into adulthood…” wrote Joanna Maclennan
b) Louvre Lens Museum, Hauts de France
by Caroline McCormick-Clarke
The Louvre-Lens museum is built on a former mine shaft of the Lens Mining Company. As I drove along Rue Paul Bert from the Stade Bollaert-Delelis football stadium towards the museum’s free car park, I passed streets of well preserved red bricked miners’ cottages.”
The one storey glass and aluminium metal museum building is composed of a series of five volumes - a large square and four rectangles - connected only at their corners. This modern arrangement evokes the Louvre Palace in Paris, structured around a central pavilion onto which are grafted two large wings, each ending in a recess.”
The museum was designed by architects Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa of the Japanese firm SANAA…” wrote Caroline McCormick-Clarke
c) The Grandmother’s Yarn
by Judy MacMahon
Something catches my attention, almost always sideways. Not the headline. A single line, mentioned once in something I was reading for a completely different reason, and never brought up again for the rest of the piece.
That’s how Pauline Dujancourt found her way onto my shelf. One sentence, almost thrown away: something about hating to knit. I went digging expecting the usual dry gully, a young designer with decent press and nothing much underneath. And then it wasn’t dry at all.
She’s French and thirty-one now, working out of London. LVMH Prize finalist. Dover Street Market stocks her. None of that’s the part that stopped me…”
Read the entire essay→
d) La cuisine nissarde + 9 great places to try it in Nice
by Suzanne Rietmeijer
When I think of la cuisine niçoise, I immediately want to pick up some socca on Cours Saleya, or grab a slice of pissaladière. I have friends who swear by a good, fresh pan bagnat, but only if it comes from that one very particular place.
That’s really the common thread when you talk to Niçois about their local cuisine. Sooner or later, you’ll get a fiery case for why X makes the best socca and why Y is the only place you should ever order pissaladière from, often delivered with a passionately raised finger.
And that’s before we even get into what does and doesn’t belong in a salade niçoise (looking at you, haricots verts, tinned tuna, and lettuce), and why you absolutely have to try the green yet sweet tourte de blettes, a Swiss chard tart, and the gnocchi-like merda de can (loosely translated: dog poop, la joie!)…” wrote Suzanne Rietmeijer.
2. Merci mille fois
“Thank you for subscribing to ‘le Bulletin’, the newsletter of MyFrenchLife™ Magazine.”
Judy MacMahon
Merci mille fois d’être ici, mes ami(e)s. Thanks for being here.
I’m so grateful for you, those who’ve been here reading this.
Merci to Joanna, out in Arles chasing a festival she’d somehow missed for years. To Caroline, standing over a mine shaft turned museum in the Hauts-de-France. To Suzanne, brave enough to wade into Nice’s oldest argument, whose salade niçoise, whose socca, and coming out the other side with nine addresses worth trusting.
France rarely agrees with itself, and I love it all the more for that.
This is FRANCE AS IT HAPPENS this week.
À bientôt,
Judy
judy@myfrenchlife.org
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