Le Marché – The Traditional French Market
For many holidaymakers visiting France, one of the pleasures is to enjoy wandering through a traditional French market. The market ,le marché, is an integral part of life in virtually all French towns and large villages, so much so that even today these markets can be seen as a surviving part of France’s historic heritage.
These traditional fruit and vegetable markets, as well as markets offering a much wider array of stalls, have always remained a part of life in France. The market, as a source of fresh fruit and vegetables, is part of France’s famed tradition of good eating, and for this reason it is as authentic an experience as one can wish to find.
Most towns and large villages have a large market once a week, and in larger towns, markets may take place twice a week, or even every day. Many French towns boast a covered market (marché couvert), which is a permanent structure, occupied by an array of market stalls; in a classic “marché couvert”, most of the stalls will sell fresh fruit and vegetables, and some of the stall-holders will also be local market-gardeners, selling their own produce among other products imported from further afield. There is often a cluster of good restaurants to be found close to the covered market in a French town, and chefs will each morning pay a visit and bring back boxes of the freshest fruit and vegetables.
Stalls you are likely to find include butchers, bakers, and delicatessens offering local specialities. In Paris, fruit and vegetable markets spring up on the pavements under the trees beside wide boulevards on different days of the week, often on Saturday or Sunday morning.
Large weekly markets are attended both by local stallholders, and by a range of specialised traders who will set up their stall on a different market each day of the week. Very often, the larger town in an area will have its weekly market on Saturdays, and smaller towns will have theirs on other days; in these smaller markets, the number of itinerant stall-holders will depend on the number of other markets on the same day within their area, and the relative interest in each of these markets. Thanks to these stallholders, larger weekly markets have a rich range of specialised stalls, offering organic vegetables, food specialities from the region or from other countries, cheese, wine, clothes, garden plants, wine straight from the producer, honey and a lot more. 
A few markets, notably specialised markets, have acquired a national reputation; there is the famous flea market at the Porte de Clignancourt in Paris, the flower market in Nice, the Christmas markets in Strasbourg, the olive markets in Provence or the fish market round the old port in Marseilles. There are wine markets in Bordeaux, and famous gastronomic markets in Perigueux, the heart of French truffle and foie-gras country. But generally speaking, markets are a local or regional event, attended by local producers, craftsmen or traders, and as such they are not the type of event that has any reason to acquire a national reputation; markets are just a part of the French way of living.
Obviously, the fruit, vegetables and local produce in general that are the mainspring of most markets, and the smaller the market, the more it will tend to be an outlet for local producers. In rural areas, like Gascony, it is still possible to find markets where small farmers sell just their own produce. Vegetables and fruit in season, flowers, perhaps farm-produced cheese, home-made bread, eggs, and even a rabbit or two, or week-old chicks. Although the number of small farms in France has fallen dramatically in recent decades, there is still an elderly generation of smallholders who attend weekly markets in the way they have been doing for the past thirty or forty years. Yet in spite of France’s attachment to its rural heritage, the smallholders selling their produce at a weekly market are survivors from the old rural way of life. It is unusual to see young smallholders on a market in rural France, and while the market itself, as a tradition, is not under threat, the nature of small rural markets is changing, as is rural France in general. In twenty years’ time, there will still be plenty of markets in France; but will there be as many, and will they still be rich in tradition as they are today? I hope so.
Lectoure street market takes place every Friday. Fleurance on a Tuesday and Saturday, Auch and Condom every Friday, in fact you can visit a local market every single day in this beautiful region of France. A detailed list is provided in our gite information binder at La Vieille Source.
If you’d like to see this exhibition it’s being held from 5th September until 25th September, on Wednesdays through to Sundays at the Auberge de Gauran, just outside Lectoure. All the beautiful photographs featured have been taken in Gascony, they are available to buy as framed works and some have been produced as gorgeous high quality postcards. I can highly recommend it!
This theme park at Agen, just 30 minutes from our gite La Vieille Source, opens around Easter each year until it closes for winter in November. It’s great fun for all ages with lots and lots and LOTS of fun rides to discover. It’s well signposted and easy to find, there’s plenty of parking and a really nice shady picnic area with tables and bench seating.
