Don't be fooled! Kissing Fanny is no reward (although that might depend on the Fanny...!). Kissing Fanny is a punishment for losing a game without scoring a single point!
It would appear that this tradition started in France's Savoy region, far from the sunny South! The first Fanny was a waitress at the café de Grand-Lemps, just after World War I. As legend would have it, she was so kindhearte that she would allow customers who had lost a game of boules without scoring a single point to kiss her... on the cheek
This went on until one day the village mayor lost a game and came to collect his "prize". No one knows whether Fanny had a grudge against hime and wanted to humiliate him, but we do know that she stepped up onto a chair, lifted her skirt and offered him... her fanny! The mayor was up to the challenge though, and less than a second later, two loud kisses resounded through the café. This was the beginning of a longstanding tradition...
The problem with this charming ritual is that players don't always have a Fanny to hand. That is, a Fanny who is willing to bare her backside in public. This is why, everywhere boules is played, a fake fanny is proudly displayed. The unhappy losers are obliged to kiss, in public, the generous cheeks of a Fanny whether in a painting, or made of pottery or as a sculpture. Thus, the consolation prize has become the ultimate humiliation for boules players everywhere.
