This paper reports on life-story accounts used to gain insights into the symbolic value language learners attach to French. The concept of "interpretative repertoires" is used to show how participants situate personal narratives in broader cultural discourses (a "Francophile repertoire") to construct their experience of Frenchness. Data from three life narrative case studies--British adults who have studied French to a high level--illustrate how situated repertoires are circulated and reproduced. This type of analytical approach can extend our understanding of how engagement with "prestige" languages such as French is inscribed in particular forms of cultural capital. (Contains 7 notes.)