She could have settled for a quiet coffee on the port and a little Provençal sun. But Mireille Mathieu has never quite managed to stay in the background, even when she tries.
The Avignon-born singer was in the village this summer, and she kept busy. She sang for the firefighters battling the Var blazes, which suits her perfectly: big voices sometimes need somewhere to land before they can do any good. She also performed alongside Enrico Macias, a long-standing friend and fellow traveller of French chanson, in what sounded less like a scheduled concert and more like two old friends who happened to find a piano.
But it was her words that drew most attention. She publicly defended Ary Abittan, the comedian whose legal case ended in a confirmed dismissal on appeal, and she spoke about Brigitte Bardot, who died in December 2025 in Saint-Tropez, the village she had called home for decades and never left.
And then there is the detail that has made its way around: Mathieu apparently attempted, in some form, to invoke rain. In a Var that burns a little earlier every summer, the gesture is equal parts endearing and faintly absurd. Still, someone has to try.
Nice-Matin ran the interview on its front page. The village, for its part, does not seem to mind the attention.
