For the past two decades, the Bastille Day celebration in New York City is accompanied by pétanque tournaments. Organized in Manhattan and Brooklyn, these highly anticipated competitions demonstrate the nostalgic link between members of the French community and some patterns of popular culture they lost after settling in the United States. The desire to situate one’s entire childhood in France into a pétanque competition reflects the intensity of the underlying motivations and allows the creation of new Provence-related links.