“Pay homage to Sète and the jousts”: when a trucker from the Vosges has his truck repainted out of love for Sète!

Sur son côté gauche, le camion représente un jouteur en action, avec en fond la Maison de la Mer. – DR

The Braganti family is crazy about Sète. So much so that the son, a truck driver, had his truck repainted.

As if struck by Cupid. For more than twenty years, the Braganti family, originally from the Vosges, has returned every summer on vacation to Sète. Véronique, François and their son Mathieu "fell in love" of the unique island, its quays, its beaches, its boats, its gastronomy and its gentle way of life. They wouldn't miss "for the world" Saint-Louis.

"We would love to come and settle there…"

"It’s our heart city, confides, with a very recognizable Vosges accent, Véronique, who lives with her husband in Moyenmoutier, near Saint-Dié-des-Vosges . The three of us settle down at the level of the slab, at the Corniche. We have a view of the sea, we sleep with the window open to hear the sound of the waves, right in front of the beaches. It’s paradise. We take the last three weeks of August. We're going to buy our tielles, our zézettes, which we order because we love dipping them in our coffee. For us, it’s THE meeting place. We would love to come and settle there…"

Sète, Véronique talks about it with her guts. Emotion is never far away. The hairs stand up. The voice trembles. And the virus is familial. A love such as Mathieu, a few years ago, wanted to mark the occasion. Leave a trace. Almost doing something crazy. Like lovers would do by tattooing the first name of their other half on their skin.

"Paying homage to this beautiful city and the jousts"

Véronique says: "My son passed his heavy goods vehicle licence. He joined a transport company called Rouillon. There, all the trucks are decorated! For the first six months, Mathieu drove in a neutral truck, until his boss asked him to choose his design."

The son didn’t think for two minutes. An admirer of jousting, he asked that jousters in action be represented (visible on the right and left parts of the cabin, Editor's note), in the canal, with the Maison de la Mer in the background. "We wanted to pay homage to this beautiful city of Sète and to the jousts”, simply says Véronique, who specifies that her son kept this truck for a year, before it returned to the transporter's fleet .

On the roads of France, up to a parade in Le Castellet

During this period, the blue truck with local colors crisscrossed France. Some Sétois may remember seeing him, since the Braganti family has already “come down” with the vehicle on the edge of the Mediterranean. The tractor even had the opportunity to participate in a parade of decorated trucks on the Paul-Ricard circuit, in Le Castellet. According to our information, it is still in circulation, but on regional roads in the Vosges only. On the odometer:  829,250 km! 

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