In Lille, from 2016 to 2021, we organised LambdaLille:
Even if the event wasn’t 100% dedicated to OCaml, it was mainly general. There were several presentations dedicated to OCaml or by members of the OCaml community (13 talks related to OCaml/Reason).
The event was pretty cool and survived the online meetup pandemic just fine. And yes, we were using Meetup (and Twitter for communication) with a big presence at other events for publicity. Looking back, I think it was probably one of the biggest regular events dedicated to functional programming in French, outside the academic world.
In 2021, I moved to Nantes and we were able to launch LambdaNantes :
(yeah, the logo is … weird)
The event is, for the moment, less ambitious (but we’ve already had 2 events dedicated to OCaml, we also sponsored an OUPS!). Another change is the switch to Mobilizon, a free Meetup implementation based on ActivityPub. It’s not crazy, and as we like to reinvent the wheel, we’ll probably write our version in OCaml.
We’re always on the lookout for speakers and presentations, so we’d be delighted to host any. If you’re close to Nantes! For 2024, we’re going to try, after the ScalaIO 2024 conference (the 10th anniversary, in Nantes, where I’ll be giving the opening keynote) to create a more regular event, and to have better communication so that, why not, we end up with a real annual conference.