C'est used for past tense?

Question

c'est l'ambiance chaleureuse qui m'a plu is translated as it was the warm atmosphere that I enjoyed . Since it is the past tense shouldn't c'etait be used?

Chris Wirt · Accepted Answer

In French, when referring to a specific past event or experience, c'est is often used with the passé composé instead of c'était. You would use c'était when referring to a general issue: c'était une ambiance chaleureuse.

Céline Pickard · Answer

Bonjour M,
Chris is correct! One tiny detail: it is more common to use "L'ambiance était chaleureuse" or "C'était un moment chaleureux". It sounds more natural to a native speaker.
I hope this is helpful.
Bonne journée !

Alan Graham · Answer

I don't think either of these answers really explain the relevant feature of this example which causes the tense to be different.

There is a grammatical structure known as a "cleft sentence" which has the form "c'est X qui + verb" or, in English, "it is/was/will be X that + verb". In English we use the same tense for both parts of the sentence, but in French it's normal to use "c'est" for the first part regardless of the tense of the other part.

There's a good explanation in the first answer below:

https://french.stackexchange.com/questions/46982/cest-vs-c%C3%A9tait-when-talking-about-past