Romane is a Paris-born guitarist who has spent three decades as one of the most visible keepers of Django Reinhardt's repertoire in France. He was born Patrick Leguidecoq in Paris in 1959, into a family of musicians, and he is not himself Romani. He studied piano for about thirteen years before turning to the guitar, the instrument of his father and grandfather, and as a teenager he spent his time with Manouche and Romani players at the Puces de Clignancourt flea market and at La Chope, a Paris meeting place for Reinhardt's music. A 1983 method book with a four-title play-along record, featuring the double bassist Bruno Morange, was published by Salabert under his given name.

His first album, Swing for Ninine, came out in 1992, and in 1994 he made Romane Quintet for the JSL label, recorded in November 1993 with the violinist Florin Niculescu, the guitarists Laurent Bajata and Philippe "Doudou" Cuillerier, and the bassist Pierre Maingourd. He was also the first pedagogical director of the Village Musiques Actuelles at the ATLA school, founded by Noëlle Tatich in 1994. He launched the magazine French Guitare in March 1997 (it became French Guitare et Chanson in 2000 and ended the same year) and won the Prix Sidney Bechet of the Académie du Jazz in 1997. Ombre (1996) and Swing in Nashville (1997), the latter made during a stay in Tennessee with Bajata and the bassist Bob Burns, belong to the same run; his label's biography says he played the Grand Ole Opry before 8,000 people alongside the guitarists Mark O'Connor and John Jorgenson.

In 1998 he formed the New Quintette du Hot Club de France with Babik Reinhardt, Django's son, on a record with Niculescu, Cuillerier, the bassist Gilles Naturel and, on one track, the violinist Didier Lockwood. Romane in turn plays guitar on "Night and Day" and "As Time Goes By" on Lockwood's For Stéphane, a tribute for the centenary of Stéphane Grappelli's birth. Samois-sur-Seine followed in 1998 and Impair & Valse in 1999. In 2000 he recorded Élégance with the Dutch guitarist Stochelo Rosenberg and Naturel, the first of a series of duo records that continued with Double Jeu (2004), the live Gypsy Guitar Masters (recorded at the Opéra Comédie in Montpellier on October 8, 2005) and Tribulations (2010, EmArcy). In 2000 he also produced Tchavolo Schmitt's Alors? ... Voilà! and played rhythm guitar on it.

The early 2000s widened his settings. Romane & The Frédéric Manoukian Orchestra (2001) put him in front of a big band, Romane Acoustic Quartet (2002) paired him with the rhythm guitarists Yayo and Fanto Reinhardt, and Djangovision (2003) added the Hammond organist Benoît Sourisse. French Guitar (2005) mixed his own pieces with French songs from his childhood and gave his son Richard Manetti a guest turn on one track. Father and son made Père & Fils in 2007, and in 2009 he was one of the four billed leaders of Django 100, a record for the Reinhardt centenary with Angelo Debarre and the brothers Boulou & Elios Ferré. In 2010 Frémeaux & Associés took over the rights to the 1992 to 2007 catalogue and reissued it as the twelve-volume Intégrale Romane, and in September 2010 he recorded Roots & Groove live at the Sunset in Paris. He received the Grand Prix du Jazz of the Sacem in 2013, the year of Guitar Family Connection, made with his sons Richard and Pierre Manetti.

Recent records include Allô, Balthazar ?! (2017) with the accordionist Éric Bouvelle, Rendez-Vous (Tosky Records, recorded in March 2018 and issued in 2019) with the violinist Daniel John Martin, the guitarist Julien Cattiaux and the double bassist Michel Rosciglione, the trio album Soir de trottoir (2021), Papillons (2023) with Martin, and The Romane Classical Pieces (2024), credited to the Romane Manetti Guitar Family and made with his two sons, a bassist and a string quartet. He also opened the Swing Romane Académie, a school of Manouche swing and modern music.

Romane works in the Manouche tradition of Django Reinhardt, but from the outside: he learned it from the records and from the Gypsy players of Paris rather than from a family line, and notes on his live record with Rosenberg describe a Parisian flavor in his playing that he developed while working in the flea-market guitar shops. He plays both acoustic and amplified guitar, and the instruments credited on his records include guitars by the luthier Maurice Dupont. His discography avoids a single format: it runs from duos with Stochelo Rosenberg and with his son Richard Manetti through quintets and quartets with extra rhythm guitars to an organ-led group, a big-band date and a record with a string quartet. Much of the repertoire is Reinhardt's, but he writes his own tunes as well, among them "Soir de trottoir", "Opus de Clignancourt" and "Pour parler", which he has recorded more than once. French Guitar (2005) leaned on French song, with pieces associated with Édith Piaf, Charles Trenet and Sacha Distel, and Jazz Magazine gave it four stars. He is also a teacher and writer: he published several guitar methods with Derek Sébastian and founded the Swing Romane Académie.