Being French is the towers of Les Mureaux
It's yellow fields and Peugeot tractors
Bell towers, temples and minarets
And apparently we know how to live together
Being French is the roundabouts that blossom
Flirting with extremes, voting for beauty queens
Being French is holding up placards
That little fist you notice on the map
Being French is trains in the night
In Montparnasse, in Limoges, in Drancy
It's loving the mountains, loving the sea
It's the Pont des Arts, it's Aimé Césaire
Being French is raising, in October
A glass of wine to admire the color
They drink to the next days off, to life
Or to Ilan Halimi's memory
Being French is streets that abound
People marching in the name of rights that rumble
It's softly dreaming of the United States
Marcel Cerdan is Muhammad Ali
Being French is people who unite
For the time of a bullet or cherry season
It's turning on the TV, lighting candles
That bit of soul that binds us
It's people who dream and who come in
It's my father's hope in the '50s
It's a kid learning on a classroom bench
Another waiting on a sandbank
It's night in Calais, it's César night
It's by choice or by chance
It's by choice or by chance
It's by choice or by chance
It's by choice or by chance
It's by choice or by chance
It's by choice or by chance