It is in Sète, a charming little port in the Hérault where he owns a small house that Benjamin Biolay has found refuge. A city of hearts to which the singer pays homage in his latest album 'Saint-Clair'. This does not prevent him from continuing to live most of the year in Paris.

With confinement (and real estate prices), many Parisians have fled to the provinces to afford bigger and cheaper. And there are those, luckier and more fortunate, who have the possibility of juggling between the capital and a pied-à-terre in the countryside, in the mountains or by the sea. This is the case of the singer Benjamin Biolay , who has set his sights on the South of France, precisely in Sète (and no, it's not because he's a fan of tomorrow belongs to us ).

Why does Benjamin Biolay pay homage to Sète in his latest album?

Two years after the success of Grand Prize , sacred album at the Victoires de la Musique, Benjamin Biolay unveiled on September 9th his 10 and opus titled Saint-Clair . Tribute to Mont Saint-Clair, this hill which dominates the port of Sète, the album opens with the title Return the love! , whose clip is set in the hometown of Brassens. If the small port of Hérault is so present, it is because the singer from Lyon, Parisian by adoption, does not hide her love for Sète, which has become her favorite city.

What does Benjamin Biolay's house look like in Sète?

It must be said that Benjamin Biolay knows the small maritime city well, having stayed there many times since his childhood. ' Part of my family lives in Sète so I spent a lot of school holidays there. I happen to have lived there for about fifteen years now. It is ultimately the city in which I have the most references. I love everything, I've always been fascinated by this place “, he explained in the past at the microphone of France Inter. Owner of a 'baraquette' on Mont Saint-Clair, the singer comes there to recharge his batteries in the company of his daughter Anna, whom he had with the actress Chiara Mastroianni .

' This is where I've been coming back every summer since I was a child and where the only thing I own is a baraquette on Mont Saint-Clair. It is a small house made in the tradition, with two rooms and sand between the walls to cool the house. Some transform their barracks into an architect's house, mine remains in its own juice. I just painted it a little. I meet friends and family there. It is a very inspiring place. I take a lot of fuel there, which I can return wherever I am “, he said on September 7, 2022 at the JDD .

Sète, star of Benjamin Biolay's music video

Benjamin Biolay, who had already shot several clips from his album Return sur l'Ile singulière, entrusted the production of the music video for Return the love! to the photographer Mathieu César who stages the singer on the port of Sète, dark glasses screwed on his nose and microphone in hand, escorted by a priest, firefighters, jousters, gypsies... all from Sète!

Why does Sète inspire artists so much?

' This city will always amaze me with its total Latinity, Italian and Spanish, its fishermen, its jousters.. .' confided the crooner in the columns of the free midi . It must be said that the Venice of Languedoc has always been a great source of inspiration for many artists , Georges Brassens in the lead, but also Paul Valéry, Jean Vilar, Agnès Varda or the artist Combas.

Benjamin Biolay ready to leave Paris?

The singer is currently sailing between the capital, the South and Argentina, where he has a second young daughter. Asked by Purecharts on the possibility of leaving Paris, Benjamin Biolay replied: ' Yes, no doubt... I remain an urbanite and it remains a city all the same. If you ask me if I could live in the countryside or on an island, well... The fantasy would please me, but I have still lived all my life in cities, small or large or very large. So I still need the company of men, of the local culture. '

Source journaldesfemmes.fr