“I created my family here”: in Avignon, a PMU bar among the top 100 in France

PMU bars now have their guide. A selection of 100 PMU restaurant bars “that make France” was released this Thursday, November 14. And among them: “Le Marseillais”, rue Thiers, in Avignon. “A PMU isn’t gloomy, it’s beautiful. People are apprehensive. It’s such an environment that has been pushed aside because we say that there are only men or a certain community. I have more and more women coming in. There are Italians, North Africans, Asians, the whole world is there. It speaks in all languages, it can be explained between them, it’s beautiful”reacts Lily, the co-manager of the bar.

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“It brings together two completely opposite worlds”

Here customers come have their coffee, watch horse races and bet on the horses. Behind the counter, Cassandra is the bar’s oldest waitress. “With some customers, it has become familiar”she confides. As with Marwane, he has been attending this PMU since his arrival in Avignon two years ago: “We come to have a good time, we all kiss each other, we all know each other now. I only have my children in Avignon, so I created my family here.”

But this PMU is also a bit special. For two years, it has also hosted a cabaret thanks to a stage installed at the back of the establishment. “It brings together two completely opposite worlds. It brings a new note, in order to discover this world. People come in, when they arrive there are still the races, they watch, they chat with the regulars or not. And the the next day and the day after that, they come back. And it brings people who don’t go to the theater. It brings culture to places where people never even thought they would have access to it. they watch and now some go to the opera because they want to see it more closely”, Lily says. Marwane discovered her first cabaret shows in Marseillais: “It almost gave me chills, it opened my mind,” he says.

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