Entente Cordiale – Prestigious award for two members of Brighton and Hove French Circle
Founded 110 years ago, the Brighton and Hove French Circle is run by its members and supported by the Alliance Française in London. This year the Alliance is awarding its prestigious Diplôme d’Honneur to two stalwarts of the Circle in recognition of their exceptional commitment and work : Gill Forte and Suzanne Hinton have fulfilled many roles at the heart of the happy group of francophiles for over 50 years each.
But Brighton’s links with France go back more than just a century.
While in the 1500s the French navy dropped by to sack and burn Brighton, later arrivals were keener on an Entente Cordiale. At the end of the 19th Century many French had settled here, as refugees or to find work. Brighton became a popular town in an age of ‘luxury leisure’, a train line from London opened, visitors and locals flocked to the shops selling French goods – to Madame Virginie for their dresses in the latest fashions, Madame Collette for fine shoes or Madame Normanville for their feather boas. French priests came to minister to the French residents; a literary society was set up. Amongst them was Protestant Pasteur Joye. In 1915 he was advertising a series of lectures in French, which evolved into the Brighton and Hove French Circle.