French card games

card deck using suits of clubs, diamonds, hearts, and spades

Belote () is a 32-card, trick-taking, ace–ten game played primarily in France and certain European countries, namely Armenia, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Georgia (mainly Guria), Greece, Luxembourg, Moldova, Macedonia (mainly Bitola), Bosnia and Herzegovina and also in Saudi Arabia and Tunisia. It is one of the most popular card games in those countries, and the national card game of France, both casually and in gambling.

thumb|256px|A Game of Piquet, imaginary 17th century scene painted in 1861 by Jean-Louis-Ernest Meissonier (1815–1891), [[National Museum of Wales]] Piquet (; ) is an early 16th-century plain-trick card game for two players that became France's national game. David Parlett calls it a "classic game of relatively great antiquity... still one of the most skill-rewarding card games for two" but one which is now only played by "aficionados and connoisseurs." The game is historically also known as Sant or Saunt, from the French Cent.

trick-taking card game for four players using the traditional 78-card tarot deck

Bezique () or bésigue () is a 19th-century French melding and trick-taking card game for two players, which was imported to Britain and is still played today. The game is derived from piquet, possibly via marriage (sixty-six) and briscan, with additional scoring features, notably the peculiar liaison of the and that is also a feature of pinochle, Binokel, and similarly named games that vary by country.

Écarté () is an old French casino game for two players that is still played today. It is a trick-taking game, similar to whist, but with a special and eponymous discarding phase; the word écarté means "discarded". Écarté was popular in the 19th century, but is now rarely played. It is described as "an elegant two-player derivative of Triomphe quite fun to play" and a "classic that should be known to all educated card players."

card game

Manille (; derived from the Spanish and Catalan manilla) is a Catalan French trick-taking card game which uses a 32 card deck. It spread to the rest of France in the early 20th century, but was subsequently checked and reversed by the expansion of belote. It is still popular in France (primarily the north and south-west) and the western part of Belgium.

card game

Aluette or Vache ("Cow") is an old, plain trick-taking card game that is played on the west coast of France. It is played by two teams, usually of four people, but sometimes also of six. It is unusual in using a unique pack of 48 Spanish playing cards and a system of signalling between playing partners. The French colloquial names for the game, jeu de la Vache or Vache, refer to the cow depicted on one of the cards.

board game

straightforward trick-taking game

French card game

Bouillotte is an 18th-century French gambling card game of the Revolution based on Brelan, very popular during the 19th century in France and again for some years from 1830. It was also popular in America. The game is regarded as one of the games that influenced the open-card stud variation in poker. The rules continue to be printed in French gaming compendia.

card game

gambling card game