KC Jordan, LJI Reporter
A group of French expats, friends, and Pontiac residents with French ties gathered at a home in Campbell’s Bay on Saturday to celebrate Bastille Day, France’s national holiday.
Attendees proudly sported red, white and blue attire, sang the Marseillaise (France’s national anthem) and played pétanque, a popular lawn bowling-style game that originates in the south of France.
Marco Izquierdo, who hosted the event with his wife Annie Filion in the backyard of their home, moved to Canada from France about 15 years ago, and after living in Ottawa for a while ended up getting a job in the Pontiac. That’s when the annual tradition of celebrating Bastille Day started.
“There were many French expats living here in Campbell’s Bay,” he said, adding that most of them happened to live on the same street.
“It was like a little France.”
A small group of them started getting together every year to celebrate, and since then the tradition has grown to include other French expats, friends, and neighbours.
The holiday commemorates the storming of the Bastille, an event that is widely recognized as marking the end of the monarchy’s oppressive rule and the beginning of the French Revolution.
Now, for many the holiday symbolizes the national motto of the country: liberté, égalité, fraternité (liberty, equality, fraternity), the fundamental values that define French society today.
Food and wine were naturally an important component of the festivities. Before dinner, guests were served a pinard — the Parisian term for a pre-dinner glass of wine.
Izquierdo kept busy grilling sausages and chicken on the barbecue, and also prepared the evening’s main course, a leg of lamb roasted on an open flame, seasoned with North African spices and served with potatoes and beans.
Other culinary highlights included a wide array of breads brought from a Breton baker in Gatineau, including two entire bakery trays piled high with baguettes, fougasses, and crusty loaves stuffed with blue cheese and nuts.
An after-dinner cheese course featured cheeses of varying prices and pungencies, and were served with still more bread.
Josey Bouchard attends the event every year. She said it’s a great occasion to celebrate French culture.
“We do this every year,” she said. “We eat lamb and drink wine and we sing the Marseillaise. It’s a great excuse to get everyone together.”
Some neighbours with no personal ties to France have also been attending the party for years, including Clément Hoeck, an artist in Campbell’s Bay.
He looks forward to the celebration every year, and even tries his hand at pétanque.
“I’m not competitive, but I try to play,” he said.
He was one of 12 players who ventured across the street to the makeshift pétanque grounds, where teams battled it out while they waited for dinner to arrive.
Vincent Lo Monaco organizes the tournament every year. He is from La Ciotat, the town in France where the sport originated in the 1910s.
He had an official rulebook on hand, as well as a pamphlet with a brief history of the sport.
In pétanque, each two-person team throws six combined metal balls (called boules) toward a smaller ball (the cochonnier), trying to get their balls closest to the target. The first team to reach 13 points is declared the winner.
Lo Monaco was the official referee of the tournament, bringing in his tape measure if there were any disputes about whose ball was closest.
The tournament did not reach a conclusion because, once the players adjourned for dinner, they never returned to the game.