LAFAYETTE, La. — The concept of the French Table seems simple.
"At this restaurant, on this day for lunch, this table is the French Table. You come eat your lunch while you're on lunch break, but if you're at the French Table, you talk French," said Colby LeJeune, a frequenter of French Tables throughout south Louisiana.
That concept has grown through the years to where there are now dozens of regularly-scheduled French Tables throughout south Louisiana.
"There's a few situations like that—a few French Tables. You go, eat at a restaurant, talk French. Have coffee, talk French, but some are literally, you show up, and it's a classroom," LeJeune said.
These French Tables have become a tradition of Louisiana culture—one that caught the attention of Marika Forbes, an exchange student from New Brunswick, Canada.
As a part of the Acadie/Acadiana Student Exchange program, Forbes created a photography project centered around French Tables, titled "Tables Françaises: A Linguistic Cultural Survival through Community Building."
Forbes said the people gathering at these French Tables feel like friends, or maybe even family—a feeling she wanted to capture with her photos.
"I wanted to put emphasis on, like, the nouvelle vague—the body language and, like, people talking with their hands or people leaning in when they're listening to other people talk so that the photographs are more interesting, and, kind of, you get the feel of the atmosphere of the French Tables," Forbes said.
While the tables are a fun way to build community, they are also a chance to revive and preserve Louisiana French.
"Go to the French Tables. Speak French. Learn French. Étaient Français—We're French. We are French," LeJeune said.
To find the French Table nearest to you, check out CODOFIL's schedule of events here.
