COVER N. 488 - FRANCE

Postmark: La Pétanque, sports de mediterranée - 13 La Ciotat  - la Poste - 1er jour 05.07.2024

Posted on the 5th July; Received on the 11th July 2024

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It was a hot summer afternoon, one of those scorching dry afternoons that are becoming more and more frequent along the south of Europe. We were somewhere in France, my sister, my brother in law and their two young boys and my wife and I with our two daughters. These were the 90s of last century and the cars we had did not have the comfort of air conditioning... mine was a Fiat Uno, my sister's I can't really remember but even if bigger,  there was also no ac in it, whatsoever.

We needed an urgent break in the shade, and also to get some water,  so when we saw a  public water fountain by the side of the road we immediately decided it was time for a stop, to freshen up.

Behind the fountain there was this park with huge trees that generated some much appreciated shade, and below the trees there were  a couple of clearly defined and very smooth fine gravel rectangular areas, which I noticed but didn't care much about, since my priority was the water and the opportunity to wet my head to try and alleviate the effects of the very uncomfortable heat.

Children had the priority, of course, and after the four of them had drank as much water as they wanted, we grown-ups started to fill in our bottles and wet ourselves in the head and face, while they all went to play in the park. 

All of a sudden loud shouts were heard  and, by the tone of it, we immediately understood that these were not an expression of any friendly welcome....

We looked around: at the edge of the park, our four little pests were all very still inside one of the gravel grounds, wherein clear marks of their footprints and dragged feet were quite conspicuous. On the corner of the ground there was this gentleman who was shouting at them. I got it all clearly, then: the smooth even surface the children had just destroyed was a Pétanque ground and now it had to be levelled again with the instrument that the gentleman was holding in his hand.

I went to him and asked for his forgiveness and offered to level the ground again if he would let me do it with the tool he had, but he just looked at me and told me to get the children off the ground, and that he would do the levelling again (clearly he didn't trust my ability to do it...). Understandably he was not in the best of moods, so after apologising again, I did as told and led the offenders back to the cars, and off we went.

Un grand merci, Eric, for this FDC dedicated to that quintessential French sport and pastime: La Pétanque.

La Pétanque is one of those sports that I assume everybody is familiar with, since games involving impelling  balls towards a target, are an highly popular concept in all its derivations like bowling, bawls, etc.

Still I had no idea of its formal origin, which Eric informed had taken place at the French city of La Ciotat, near Marseille, from where he kindly took the trouble to send the cover, as attested by the first day postmark.

With my curiosity fuelled in by Eric's hint and by the beautiful stamp on the cover,  I went and checked the Wikipedia entry on the sport to learn that it had a very interesting origin.

Turns out that the original sport was called Jeu Provençal and even if the objective was the same as that of the Pétanque, putting your ball the closest possible to the target ball, the throwing method differed since, in this original version, the player would have to run three steps before throwing the ball (quite akin to bowling, again, I think).

Since a well known  player of the time from la Ciotat, Monsieur Jules Lenoir, had to stop playing because his rheumatism prevented him from running the required three steps, a friend of his came up with this revised version of the game, played in a court that was half the length of that of the Jeu Provençal, and where the players had to throw the ball from a stand still position, inside a delimitated area.

This revised version of the game was called "pieds tanqués" (planted feet), which over time would evolve into the designation in use today: Pétanque.

The very nice 1,96€ stamp was issued on 05JUL2024 as the French contribution for the 2024 Euromed common issue, themed on Sports of the Mediterranean, and it shows a couple of pétaque balls, as well as the little target ball, over a ground like the one my daughters and their cousins played hell with. On the background a player wearing a beret (which immediately tells us where we are) throws another "boule".

As I mentioned above the letter was postmarked at the place where the game originated, La Ciotat.

The celebratory postmark features a pair of pétanque balls in which the engraved groove pattern that makes it possible to distinguish the balls of the different players (I mean those they throw, of course 😀....) is clearly visible as well as the smaller target ball, called "cochonnet". On the background two tall palm trees again remember the viewer that we're talking south here....

Unfortunately, as usual with French FDCs there is a totally unnecessary mechanical obliteration on the stamp, which does not add anything to the cover, on the contrary....