Giant banquets rile radical left in France

bbc ^ | 06/06/2026 | Hugh Schofield

[BenLurkin]

Three-and-a-half-thousand hungry Alsatians wolf down platters of charcuterie and periodically burst into noisy chorus....the latest iteration of a feasting phenomenon that is sweeping provincial France.

The Alsace town of Colmar – famous for its half-timbered medieval centre – was the scene last weekend of one of the banquets géants – huge banquets whose popularity in the country has suddenly become a hot political issue.

Run by a company called Le Canon Français (The French Cannon), the banquets are massively attended – €81 (£70) buying you four courses of local gastronomy, all the wine you can drink, and several hours of sing-along camaraderie.

At the Colmar banquet, held in a vast hangar-like space on the edge of town...the punters are seated on long tables with 50 down each side. Many men are in what has become a kind of Canon Français uniform of berets and braces. A few women are in traditional Alsace dress.

There is a brief address from management reminding diners of the "charter" committing them to behave with respect and decorum, and then the fun begins. An army of servers brings out platters with choucroute, then Alsace cheeses and the traditional kougelhopf pudding. Wine flows.

Periodically the revellers down forks and join in song. Old standards by performers like Michel Delpech and Joe Dassin are the favourites. These are songs from an earlier generation, but the participants - who look like they are mainly in their 20s and 30s - know them by heart.

"We come for four things: atmosphere, friends, alcohol and food," says one young man in a response which is echoed over and again. No-one wants to talk politics, except to say that they think the whole controversy has been blown out of proportion.

[miniTAX]

The usual hit job by the lying leftards at British BS Corp and the French legacy media. They want readers to believe the Canon Francais’ attendance is predominatly young hothead (hence extreme right white supremacist) males but it’s totally untrue.
Those are just French people of all ages, gathering to eat and drink a lot like they love to do, and getting home voting for more diversity, more atheism and more statism, unfortunately. They do it after every big rubby matches like always, well before the Canon Français manufactured “controversy”.

[pburiak]

Sounds like a good time. I would go to one of these banquets if I could.

The Left can’t stand normal people having fun and enjoying life.

[PghBaldy]

Punters = customers in British slang.

[FreedomPoster]

FYI for FReepers, the town of Colmar has a small but very nicely done WWII museum. The battle of the Colmar Pocket was an important action in clearing that part of Alsace.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colmar_Pocket

[FreedomPoster]

My experience there ~10 years ago, though brief, was that the Alsatians were still thankful that Americans helped eject the WWII Germans that were “visiting”.

[FreedomPoster]

I walked the ground where he did that in the trip I mentioned just above. The tale is pretty amazing when you look at all the details.

[Albion Wilde]

"Look, I create jobs, I create happiness for the people who come to the banquets. OK, these politicians don't like the shareholder, they don't like the people who come to the banquets, they don't like my name – but why do they have to go on the attack? "Why can't they just leave us alone?"

[Albion Wilde]

Earlier thread on same topic: https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/4382582/posts

[FreedomPoster]

This just showed up in my X feed. It’s another one of these events with a nice video.

https://x.com/therealmissjo/status/2063297063220121708?s=20