Coordinates: 48°52′04″N 0°59′01″W / 48.8678°N 0.9836°W / 48.8678; -0.9836

Le Mesnil-Benoist is a commune in the Calvados department in the Basse-Normandie region in northwestern France.

Romain Mesnil (born 13 July 1977 in Le Plessis-Bouchard) is a French pole vaulter. His personal best is 5.95 metres, achieved in August 2003 in Castres. His coach is Georges Martin.

On March 2009, Mesnil released a video of himself running naked through the streets of Paris as if to pole vault in Parisian tourist spots; the video, posted on YouTube was an attempt to attract attention from sponsors after his contract with Nike was not renewed.

Benoît Dorémus, born in Besançon on 20 May 1980,^{[citation needed]} is a French singer-songwriter. He is the fourth of five children and grew up in France.

Dorémus wrote his first pieces of poetry before the age of ten. He also began to learn to play the guitar.

He spent his first years between Metz and Avignon to finally settle down in Paris at 21, after passing a cinematographic Performing Arts bachelor's degree in 2001, and finishing his first novel.

He had his first concerts in 2003 within the very close Parisian fields. His songs, mostly influenced by Eminem or the famous French singer-songwriter Renaud, very popular since the '70s, often describe his bipolarity between music and literature, Philippe Djian being his favourite author concerning the latest. The texts regularly deal with a recurring character called "Benito" or "Adesias Benito", a hardly hidden allegory for himself.

His first album, Pas en parler (French for "[I'd rather] Not talk about it"), came to be known by the professionals, and among them, Renaud in 2005, thanks to the singer Sarclo, who introduced him to him.^{[citation needed]} Renaud enjoyed it and decided to produce it (label EMI).^{[citation needed]} He also did a personal cover of Rien à te mettre (French for Nothing to wear) in his 2006 album Rouge sang.