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| PHOTO 1 | PHOTO 2 | PHOTO 3 | PHOTO 4 |
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| The Cours Mirabeau, where an ordinary walk suddenly became part of a children’s game. | A city scavenger hunt turns French streets into an outdoor classroom. | Children playing in an Aix-en-Provence school courtyard. | The cour de récréation, where songs and games pass from one generation to the next. |
A Cours Mirabeau scavenger hunt revealed La Barbichette, the French children’s rhyme in which the first person to laugh loses.
A perfectly normal walk, until the beard became evidence
Last Wednesday, we were walking down the Cours Mirabeau when we encountered a group of schoolchildren engaged in what appeared to be a scavenger hunt.
They had papers in their hands, adults keeping a watchful eye nearby, and the particular combination of urgency and confusion that suggests someone has been told to find something without being given quite enough information to find it easily.
One of their challenges was apparently to locate a person with a Père Noël-worthy beard.
Not an actual Père Noël. It was July in Aix-en-Provence, after all, and even the most committed Christmas professional would presumably have exchanged the red velvet suit for linen by now.
They needed a bearded person, however, and fate had apparently placed one directly in their path.
Once their target had been found, the children’s assignment was to tug—or at least take hold of—the beard and sing a short French song. I caught a few seconds of the encounter on video, although at the time I understood neither the words nor why a group of children had suddenly received official educational permission to interfere with a stranger’s facial hair.
It was joyful, slightly baffling and completely French.
Then, almost immediately afterward, our neighbor Joseph passed us.
We described what had just happened, and he recognized the song. It was a children’s rhyme he had known for years. Even more wonderfully, his daughter—now well beyond school age—had been singing it that very morning.
Of course she had.
Sometimes France introduces me to a piece of its culture through a museum label or a historical plaque. Other times, it sends a group of children to pull a beard on the Cours Mirabeau and then dispatches a neighbor to explain the entire thing.
The song was Je te tiens, tu me tiens par la barbichette
The children were singing one of France’s traditional playground rhymes:
Je te tiens, tu me tiens,
Par la barbichette.
Le premier de nous deux qui rira
Aura une tapette.
Un, deux, trois !
A natural English translation would be:
I’m holding you, you’re holding me,
By the little goatee.
The first of us to laugh
Will get a little tap.
One, two, three!
It is generally known as La Barbichette or le jeu de la barbichette.
The French word barbichette means a small goatee or little pointed beard. It is the diminutive of barbiche, which is itself a beard concentrated around the chin.
That explained the scavenger hunt’s interpretation. The ordinary game does not usually involve locating a passing Father Christmas substitute and testing the structural integrity of his beard. The children’s challenge had taken the familiar rhyme and turned it into a real-world mission.
Thankfully, the beard survived its brief contribution to French education.
How French children play the Barbichette game
The traditional game is played by two people facing one another.
Each player places a hand under the other person’s chin, taking hold of the imaginary—or occasionally genuine—barbichette. They look directly into each other’s eyes and sing the rhyme together.
Then comes the dangerous part:
Neither person is allowed to laugh.
At un, deux, trois, the players may release each other and fold their arms, depending on the version they learned. They continue staring at one another while trying to remain completely serious.
The first person who laughs, smiles or visibly begins to crack has lost.
The promised tapette was traditionally a light tap on the cheek. Today, particularly when children play, it is commonly symbolic, mimed or omitted entirely. The real prize is making the other person lose control while maintaining the facial expression of someone reviewing a disappointing electricity bill.
There are also variations in the ending. Some children sing:
Un, deux et trois, croisons les bras,
Comme des petits soldats !
“One, two and three, let us cross our arms like little soldiers.”
Families, schools and regions may preserve slightly different words or gestures. That is part of the nature of a comptine: it travels primarily through voices, playgrounds, families and repetition rather than through one officially approved recording.
The Mômes guide to Je te tiens, tu me tiens par la barbichette describes both the rhyme and the challenge of trying to make the other player laugh without laughing oneself.
It is essentially an early French lesson in self-control, competitive eye contact and betrayal by one’s own facial muscles.
To hear the tune—and see why remaining serious is nearly impossible—watch this children’s version of La Barbichette on YouTube.
It is a comptine, not merely a song
One of the useful discoveries for French learners is the word une comptine.
A comptine is a short children’s rhyme, often sung or chanted. It may accompany a game, teach counting, help choose who goes first or simply entertain children through rhyme and repetition.
English has nursery rhymes, counting-out rhymes and playground chants. French gathers many of these under the wonderfully useful word comptine.
La Barbichette is particularly clever because the lyrics contain the rules of the game:
We are holding each other by the chin.
The first person who laughs loses.
There may be a little tap as the penalty.
The contest begins after the count of three.
No instruction booklet is necessary. The song teaches the game while the children play it.
That may help explain its durability. A child does not need equipment, a screen, a board or even much space. Two faces and a willingness to look faintly ridiculous will do.
The impossible seriousness is the whole joke
At first glance, the game seems almost too simple.
Two children hold each other’s chins and try not to laugh.
But holding another person’s face while staring solemnly into their eyes is already funny. Trying desperately not to find it funny makes it significantly funnier. The game builds its own trap.
The more one player tightens the lips, widens the eyes or attempts to resemble a tiny magistrate, the more likely the other is to collapse.
Officially, exaggerated grimaces may be considered cheating. Unofficially, I suspect generations of French children have explored the outer limits of what can be achieved through eyebrows alone.
It belongs to the same broad family as the English-speaking challenge, “The first one to laugh loses.” But the physical gesture, the rhyme and that delightful word barbichette make the French version feel distinct.
There is intimacy in it too. The players have to stand close, make eye contact and briefly trust each other with their chins. It is competitive, but not lonely. The game only works when two people agree to be ridiculous together.
A little piece of childhood that never entirely disappears
Joseph’s comment about his daughter transformed the scene for me.
She was no longer a schoolchild, yet the rhyme had surfaced in her mind that same morning. Perhaps someone had said barbiche. Perhaps she had remembered the game. Perhaps the tune simply appeared, as childhood songs sometimes do, without explanation.
That is the strange durability of these tiny cultural fragments.
Adults may forget entire years of classroom lessons, but a six-line rhyme learned in the schoolyard can remain hidden in the brain for decades, ready to reappear while making coffee.
For someone learning French later in life, these rhymes matter because they occupy a part of the language that formal courses do not always reach.
A textbook can teach me how to reserve a hotel room or explain that my washing machine has stopped draining. Both are important, particularly in France.
But a comptine teaches me something different: what French speakers may share before they even realize it is cultural knowledge.
A French adult may hear the opening words—
Je te tiens, tu me tiens…
—and instinctively supply:
…par la barbichette.
It is not advanced grammar. It is shared memory.
Vocabulary from La Barbichette
Useful words
une barbe — a beard
une barbiche — a goatee or pointed chin beard
une barbichette — a little goatee
barbu / barbue — bearded
une comptine — a children’s rhyme
un jeu de piste — a clue-finding game or treasure trail
une chasse au trésor — a treasure hunt
tenir — to hold
rire — to laugh
sourire — to smile
une tapette — a little tap or slap, depending on context
croiser les bras — to fold or cross one’s arms
la cour de récréation — the school playground
perdre son sérieux — to lose one’s serious expression
The Larousse definition of barbichette gives the straightforward meaning “petite barbiche.” Larousse also records the figurative expression se tenir par la barbichette, suggesting people bound together by mutual dependence or shared compromising knowledge.
That figurative version is considerably less innocent than the playground game.
French learner tips
A1
Learn the core rhyme as a pronunciation exercise:
Je te tiens, tu me tiens.
Notice that tiens sounds roughly like tyehn, with a nasal vowel and no pronounced final s.
A2
Practise the difference between:
rire — to laugh
sourire — to smile
faire rire quelqu’un — to make someone laugh
Example:
Il essaie de me faire rire.
He is trying to make me laugh.
B1
Use the scene to describe rules:
Le but du jeu est de ne pas rire.
The aim of the game is not to laugh.
Le premier qui rit a perdu.
The first person who laughs has lost.
B2
Explain the cultural idea:
Cette comptine se transmet oralement d’une génération à l’autre.
This rhyme is passed orally from one generation to the next.
Advanced
Explore the figurative expression:
Ils se tiennent par la barbichette.
Depending on context, this may mean that two people are locked into mutual complicity, dependence or leverage because each possesses information about the other.
It is rather a long cultural journey from two children trying not to giggle.
The French line I can now say
The next time someone begins the rhyme, I will not need Joseph to translate the mystery.
I can say:
Ah oui, je connais cette comptine : “Je te tiens, tu me tiens par la barbichette !”
And perhaps that is one small measure of becoming a little more Aixois.
Not speaking flawless French. Not understanding every cultural reference.
Just recognizing the moment when an ordinary beard on the Cours Mirabeau has suddenly become part of a game remembered by generations.
I had expected nothing more than a walk under the plane trees. Instead, between the fountains, café terraces and summer noise, I stumbled into a piece of French childhood.
The children continued their scavenger hunt. Joseph continued on his way. The beard remained attached.
And a song I had never heard before became one I am unlikely to forget.
Sources for further information
Your turn
Did you play La Barbichette as a child, or do you know a similar “first person to laugh loses” game from another country? Share the rhyme, rules or childhood memory in the comments.
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