In Cap-d’Ail, Cocteau’s outdoor scenic setting
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We have to find it. In the maze of villas in Cap-d’Ail, the Mediterranean Center for French Studies announces itself with discreet panels. Once through the gate, you discover an oasis: hectares of terraced vegetation, buildings nestled between carob trees, cypresses, olive trees, bougainvillea… and, in a setting of Aleppo pines, a theatre. In the antique. Overlooking the sea and designed by Jean Cocteau. The public can visit it once a year, on the occasion of Heritage Days. The rest of the time, it is reserved for young foreigners who have come to study French: this is where we welcome them, give them their certificates, play skits or, quite simply, come and resource: “Invoked or not invoked, the divine will be present”wrote Jean Cocteau (1889-1963) at the entrance to the theatre, which was one of his last works.
The idea was born from the utopia of a man, Jean Moreau (1917-2004), of whom little is known
The idea was born from the utopia of a man, Jean Moreau (1917-2004), of whom little is known. “He cultivated the secret, the parts of shadow and light”, says Gilles Cappadoro, the co-director of the Mediterranean Centre, who worked with him for fourteen years. Jean Moreau was close to Michel Debré. At the Liberation, he joined the sphere of intellectuals and politicians convinced of the need to work for Franco-German reconciliation. He created a French school for foreigners in Amboise and, in the early 1950s, went prospecting in the South. He plans to set up a light summer center with tents. In Cap-d’Ail, he was told of “wastelands” : rockery with olive trees. Jean Moreau acquires them. He buys tents from Gilbert Trigano and site bungalows from the SNCF. A few remain, remnants of the heroic era of military spiked beds.
The Mediterranean Center opened in the summer of 1953. It took decades for Jean Moreau to level parts of the land and revegetate it, with the help of Italian gardeners and masons. He will even install a forge, to shape the railings. Because everything is done on site, with the means at hand: Jean Moreau values his financial independence. In July, it welcomes young people and adults. Some pay, others are sent by their company, others are scholarship holders. Most are German, but, over the years, they also come from all over Europe, America and Asia. In August vacationers arrive, thanks to an agreement with the university tourist office.
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