“O peuchère!”: where does this expression come from?

From Occitan

– from the Latin

– sinner, and not sardine fisherman, peuchère (fisherman or peicher) is part of the Marseilles dialect.

This interjection which smells of the sun and pastis is used to mark compassion, pity, sometimes commiseration.

As in the following passage from

by Marcel Pagnol (1932):

When you don't have children, you're jealous of those who do, and when you do, they make you a goat!

The Blessed Virgin, little dear, she only had one and just look at the trouble he caused her!

Fanny, by Marcel Pagnol

But it also marks the irony:

As for Beaumarchais, in

he uses the Occitan form:

FIGARO, low to Suzanne – I warn him of his danger;

that's all an honest man can do.

SUZANNE, down – Have you seen the little page?

FIGARO, low – Still crumpled up.

SUZANNE, low - Ah, pecaire!

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