A little cowboy culture in rural southwest France

Read Maia De la Baume's story in today's New York Times about the festival de country music in Mirande, France, population about 4,000. Here's an excerpt, including a quote from Alan Ribaut, organizer of the event, and the mayor's brother-in-law.

“People here are cut off from the outside world ... . So for six days, I wanted to give them the impression that they were in America,” or at least a strange version of Nashville, which bears, he insists, a great similarity to the landscape of this region, Gers.

For six days every July, Mirande, about 60 miles from Toulouse, plays host to a bizarre but happy parade of cowboys, bikers and an impressive number of French fans of John Wayne.