Petanque, the iconic French sport

Written by: Arthur, founder of ISFM 

In this article, we’ll be talking about petanque, a French invented sport that is loved worldwide.

“Pè Tancat” is an Occitan phrase which signifies “feet planted”. Petanque was created in La Ciotat, a city close to Marseille in France. It was invented by a man by the name of Jules Lenoir, who had a case of rheumatism*, and dreamt of playing a sport. Rheumatism prevented him from running before throwing a ball.

He then decided to create a sport where you didn’t need to run before throwing. He made a game where you couldn’t step out of a 50 cm diameter, and had to throw a heavy ball (sometimes made of metal) to a smaller ball called the “cochonnet” (Jack in English).

The player who gets the petanque ball closest to the Jack, in three throws, wins the game.

Now I’m going to come back and talk about the -Pè tancat- part of the story. So, Jules Lenoir is all happy after creating this game! But of course, like every other sport, he needed a name for it.

So he found this word in Occitan French, and found out that the meaning of it was, like I said earlier, “feet planted”. So he decided it was the perfect name for it. Then, he adapted the name from: Pè Tancat, to Petanque. 

That’s the story of the French marvel, Petanque. And how it became one man’s dream, to another community sport.

*Rheumatism:

Any disease marked by inflammation and pain in the joints, muscles, or fibrous tissue, especially rheumatoid arthritis.

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Thank you for reading! Written by: Arthur, founder of ISFM.