Philippe,

Please excuse my shortening your name. No disrespect intended.

As you may know, French bread is the most basic ingredients. Just Flour, water, salt and yeast. What you do with them will make a great crispy crust loaf, or not. You can learn to make great breads and later when you get the first one figured out, a baguette with those big air holes and great flavor is not far from you.

I don't know what your knowledge of baking is at this point. I usually recommend starting at the beginning with the tutorial called Your First loaf, on the main page. That will get you started and you will more than likely make a pretty darn good loaf your first time. Here is the link to that first tutorial.

I suggest trying the first lesson a few times to start learning how to knead and handle the dough. Usually each loaf gets better and better. Let us know how you are doing and if you have questions, please ask. There are lots of skilled bakers who will be glad to help out.

So dig in and let us know how it's going. If you are already baking, I would be happy to point you to some recipes and threads for Rustic French Breads. TFL has a good search feature if you want to explore.

Eric