The French state is ashamed of its rose queens

Every summer in small French towns from Créon in the Gironde to Salency in the Oise, a young woman dressed in white walks through the square, crowned with a wreath of roses. She’s the rosière , the rose queen, chosen by her town for her modesty, kindness and civic spirit. The crowning is part of the village fête, a day of processions, music and dancing that celebrates community life. The fêtes de la rosière date back to the fourteenth century, when Saint Médard, Bishop of Noyon, is said to have founded the first ceremony to reward the most virtuous girl of his village, meaning, in the language of the time, the most chaste and upright one. The tradition rested on Christian ideas of virtue, family, and duty.

In the capital, culture is downstream of ideology. In the countryside, it remai