Un Point c'est tout

🧑‍🎨 Today marks the first day of the Paris Women’s Fashion Week. A great opportunity to talk a bit about the famous Basque beret, that hat worn by every stereotyped French person. How did a woolen hat made by and for Béarn shepherds in the Pyrenees became Basque? Then a French symbol? And how did it eventually evolve as far as Argentina and the Far East? The answer is simple: amazing versatility.

🔗 ManuFrance: https://www.manufrance.fr/actualite/lhistoire-du-beret-entre-tradition-et-symbole-francais

☝️ If you enjoyed this episode, please consider:

🇫🇷 French Conversation Group meets weekly in Los Angeles, New York or online. It's meant for non native speakers (beginners, intermediate, advanced) to practice their French and have fun. You're more than welcome to join! Check out this link for more info: https://www.frenchconversationgroup.com

📜 Here is the story of a person who spent every single minute of his time reading books, learning languages and trying to solve the mystery of the Egyptian hieroglyphs. Through endless dedication, effort and perseverance, Jean-François Champollion achieved his life's goal: to decipher the ancient writing system, in September 1822. Ne jamais perdre espoir.

🔗 Champollion en Égypte: https://www.histoire-et-civilisations.com/papier/2017/edition-de-mai-2017-n028/champollion-en-egypte-le-voyage-dune-vie-80117.php

☝️ If you enjoyed this episode, please consider:

🇫🇷 French Conversation Group meets weekly in Los Angeles, New York or online. It's meant for non native speakers (beginners, intermediate, advanced) to practice their French and have fun. You're more than welcome to join! Check out this link for more info: https://www.frenchconversationgroup.com

🥐 How could such a small thing have so much history and generate so much love? Simply by being irresistible. From the medieval bakeries of Vienna, to a small patisserie in Paris, to the White House (RIP Roland Mesnier: https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2022/08/27/roland-mesnier-pastry-chef-white-house-dead/), the croissant made it to my personal breakfast routine. And I wouldn’t change it for all the Fruit Loops in the world.

🔗 Comprehensive history of the croissant (Fr): https://www.news.uliege.be/cms/c_9704828/en/les-grands-mythes-de-la-gastronomie-l-histoire-du-croissant

☝️ If you enjoyed this episode, please consider:

🇫🇷 French Conversation Group meets weekly in Los Angeles, New York or online. It's meant for non native speakers (beginners, intermediate, advanced) to practice their French and have fun. You're more than welcome to join! Check out this link for more info: https://www.frenchconversationgroup.com

🎷 If we had to decide which is the suavest musical instrument, the saxophone would certainly be in the top 5. With its warm sound resemblant the human voice, it conquered the hearts of people all around the world, in almost all musical genres. Little did we know, though, that it was invented almost two centuries ago in the little Belgian town of Dinant, by the man who gave it his name: Adolphe Sax.

🔗 "La petite histoire du saxophone", Diapason Magazine: https://www.diapasonmag.fr/histoire/la-petite-histoire-du-saxophone-13188.html

☝️ If you enjoyed this episode, please consider:

🇫🇷 French Conversation Group meets weekly in Los Angeles, New York or online. It's meant for non native speakers (beginners, intermediate, advanced) to practice their French and have fun. You're more than welcome to join! Check out this link for more info: https://www.frenchconversationgroup.com

🎩 When the cinematic worlds of Jacques Tati (Mon Oncle) and Sylvain Chomet (Les Triplettes de Belleville: https://youtu.be/6q1E_zwXlUM) meet, there is something special that happens. Both are sparing with dialogues, both believe that fewer word can go a long way. In this film, “L’Illusionniste”, Sylvain Chomet directs a story that the late Jacques Tati wrote but never made.

🎬 Watch "L'Illusionniste" on Amazon US: https://www.amazon.com/gp/video/detail/0T60ARF3OZ75XJQ14O7KWRA47D/

☝️ If you enjoyed this episode, please consider:

🇫🇷 French Conversation Group meets weekly in Los Angeles, New York or online. It's meant for non native speakers (beginners, intermediate, advanced) to practice their French and have fun. You're more than welcome to join! Check out this link for more info: https://www.frenchconversationgroup.com

✍️ A few days ago, we lost one of France’s most talented and adored caricaturists. Jean-Jacques Sempé, author of “Le petit Nicolas” as well as more than a hundred covers for the New Yorker, died only six days before his 90th birthday. Having tackled so many aspects of French life with great humor and kindness, his drawings made it to the bookshelves of many people who will remember him forever with wistful nostalgia. (Subtitles are available in French and English by clicking on the CC button on the YouTube control bar).

📕 "Les Musiciens", Jean-Jacques Sempé, on Amazon US: https://www.amazon.com/musiciens-Semp%C3%A9/dp/2207245012/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1660556104&sr=8-1

☝️ If you enjoyed this episode, please consider:

🇫🇷 French Conversation Group meets weekly in Los Angeles, New York or online. It's meant for non native speakers (beginners, intermediate, advanced) to practice their French and have fun. You're more than welcome to join! Check out this link for more info: https://www.frenchconversationgroup.com

⏳ Fasten your seatbelts, this week we go back thousands of years in time. Meet the Celts, Romans, Gauls, Franks,… some of the ancient civilizations that lived in France.

📕 "La Gaule Retrouvée", Pierre Pinon (Découverte Gallimard, 1991)

☝️ If you enjoyed this episode, please consider:

🇫🇷 French Conversation Group meets weekly in Los Angeles, New York or online. It's meant for non native speakers (beginners, intermediate, advanced) to practice their French and have fun. You're more than welcome to join! Check out this link for more info: https://www.frenchconversationgroup.com

🥘 If you have been in Lyon, you have certainly come across the “bouchon lyonnais”, that traditional restaurant serving only local dishes made of local ingredients. It acquired a worldwide reputation thanks to the original chefs like Mère Brazier and her renowned student Paul Bocuse. If you tried one of them, let us know what your experience was like, it had to be memorable.

🔗 More about the “bouchons lyonnais”: http://lesbouchonslyonnais.org/

☝️ If you enjoyed this episode, please consider:

🇫🇷 French Conversation Group meets weekly in Los Angeles, New York or online. It's meant for non native speakers (beginners, intermediate, advanced) to practice their French and have fun. You're more than welcome to join! Check out this link for more info: https://www.frenchconversationgroup.com

🚴‍♀️ For about 120 years, the Tour de France has been exclusively for men. There have been a couple of attempts to organize a women's Tour in 1955 and 1984, but both were unsuccessful. Until today: following the success of "La Course by Le Tour de France", a miniature version organized since 2014 that has brought a lot of public attention, "Le Tour de France Femmes" is reborn!

🔗 Site officiel - Le Tour Femmes: https://www.letourfemmes.fr/fr

☝️ If you enjoyed this episode, please consider:

🇫🇷 French Conversation Group meets weekly in Los Angeles, New York or online. It's meant for non native speakers (beginners, intermediate, advanced) to practice their French and have fun. You're more than welcome to join! Check out this link for more info: https://www.frenchconversationgroup.com

🇺🇸 The 18th and 19th centuries saw multiple revolutions worldwide. All of which have drastically modernized our society and planted the seeds for social revolutions to come. Undeniably, the US Declaration of Independence of 1776 was an inspiration to many, including the French Revolution, only thirteen years later.

🔗 https://www.histoire-et-civilisations.com/thematiques/epoque-moderne/vers-la-revolution-comment-la-france-a-bascule-70129.php

☝️ If you enjoyed this episode, please consider:

🇫🇷 French Conversation Group meets weekly in Los Angeles, New York or online. It's meant for non native speakers (beginners, intermediate, advanced) to practice their French and have fun. You're more than welcome to join! Check out this link for more info: https://www.frenchconversationgroup.com