Brighton & Hove French Circle

Making, Exploring, Tasting, Enjoying.
A personal view of French cheeses. It will be impossible to talk about them all as there are more than 365!, but I am looking forward to spending an informal and, hopefully, informative evening with you. I hope you will all share your experiences and opinions of different French cheeses too.

This artist is so little-known, because she was a woman !  I will treat you to the pleasure of discovering her personal style and her extreme sensitivity.

The poet and singer Georges Brassens (1921 - 1981) is still one of the great favourites of the French. Guy Richeux has selected a few of many songs that represent the main themes of Brassens' work: unwavering friendship, nonconformism, defence of the weak and the oppressed.
This event is supported by Alliance Française
(http://alliancefrancaise.london/)

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In France, young people are increasingly listening to English music rather than French. Adults no longer listen to today's new French music, because it is mostly “rap français.”
Sonia Davis will be joined by her son Adam, who will sing four or five French songs.

Every year several million tourists come to see Lyon. Lyon is France's second city of culture, after Paris, according to the Journal des Arts. Its cultural life offers more than 21,000 events a year : theatre, exhibitions, concerts, festivals....Come and visit Lyon!

Discover the history of theatre, from ancient times to the present. This talk will be given by Emilie Perraudeau, a theatre director and actress who is passionate about drama. You can look forward to an interactive experience, where, just for an hour, you'll be actors, audience and story-tellers. Theatre is living!

We are going to talk about Christmas traditions in Quebec: special food and cakes. There will be recipes for those of you who are interested in cooking. We are going to have a feast in Quebec style.

I am going to talk about the house we bought, the village, and the alterations we started to make two years ago.

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France has played a great role in the history of food. The infinite palette of flavours from its regions,  techniques of farming production, social structures, dietary and religious representations, external influences: everything that contributes to creating the identity of a people.
This event is supported by Alliance Française
(http://alliancefrancaise.london/)

Maison de la Photo Robert Doisneau.
How to teach? Which routes to follow? Proposing, evaluating, and adapting are the key words in the "Photography at school" project. Enabling pupils to become aware that photography as construction is at the heart of their learning.

"The queen of spa towns" attracted under Napoleon lll all the great personalities of Europe and the world. They built villas, each more opulent and original than the others. Hotels, places of entertainment, casino. It is the story of these treasures of our heritage that I wish to tell.
This event is supported by Alliance Française
(http://alliancefrancaise.london/)

Baudelaire, poet of the city of Paris, "the capital" (according to Walter Benjamin) "of the 19th century."   Baudelaire's modernity, his ambivalence, particularly in regard to his own era, has spoken to us for over a century and a half. In this illustrated talk, we will examine 2 texts: the small poem in prose "Any where (sic) out of the world", and the poem "The Swan" from "Les Fleurs du Mal".

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This is a talk which will be about 3 things : football, laughter and justice. At the end there will be a little quiz with 10 questions: "Which of our 3 Frenchmen said it?"
This event is supported by Alliance Française
(http://alliancefrancaise.london/)

We will discover the importance of chocolate in Belgium, its history, varieties, international reputation, as well as some technical, commercial and cultural aspects, and the Code of Belgian Chocolate.
Accompanied by Philippe Conter, Agnès Baetens will offer us an audio-visual presentation, finishing - of course - with a little tasting!

In the spirit of Alain de Botton's book "How Proust can change your life", I will praise the compassion in his work.