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On Sunday between a fried seafood lunch with a friend and a new British comedy in the cinema I had a couple of hours to kill so I drove to Estaque to explore the hinterland of this fishing village.
Away from the sea front there is nothing fancy about this village which has become the 16th arrondissement of Marseille. Houses are small and simple, and in the council estates every single name looked Arab. There were youth hanging around on street corners, and in one case I was convinced that the two teenagers sitting on chairs at a roundabout were actually guetteurs (lookouts working for drug dealers). They looked at me, and I looked straight ahead trying - without much trouble - to look like a Scandinavian tourist.....
As I got nearer to the seafront I head in the speakers a man commenting on the red and the blue boats; a competition of joute nautique provençale was taking place. In English this would be water jousting, but not just any water jousting. No, it is the Provençale kind!
It is thought that the Romans brought joute to France, but some argue that the Greeks brought it to Marseille in 570 BC whden they founded a colony here. It seems to have been a big thing in 15th and 16th centuries in various regions of France, but the real thing can be seen in Sete and in Estaque (each with each own traditions and rules, of course).
From being a fisherman's activity it has since the 1960ies been considered a sport with its clubs, training sessions for children, competitions and shows. Standing there on the quay with the many other spectators it looked like something out of a different era, but it seems that this picturesque tradition is deeply rooed on the Mediterranean coast.
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Jeu : Les joutes nautiques provençales (de Marseille - Bouches-du-Rhône)
Parmi les jeux traditionnels provençaux, les Joutes nautiques sont certainement l'un des plus spectaculaires et des plus anciens. La Tàrgo prouvençalo -ou Joute nautique provençale- est la mét...
In Estaque on Sunday afternoon
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Les Joutes Provençales de l'Estaque (Marseille)
Direction l'Estaque, village du 16ème arrondissement de Marseille, pour découvrir une tradition du quartier : Les Joutes Provençales ... Jean-Marc Franchi, président de la Fine Lance Estaquéen...
Explanations (in French) of the sport
The rules of joute nautique provençale