[lg policy] ‘Don’t Erase Us’: French Catalans Fear Losing More Than a Region’s Name

Fri Sep 9 15:56:12 UTC 2016

‘Don’t Erase Us’: French Catalans Fear Losing More Than a Region’s Name

By RAPHAEL MINDER <http://www.nytimes.com/by/raphael-minder>SEPT. 8, 2016
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Photo
A flag representing Catalan independence hanging outside a shop in
Perpignan, France. In the city, which was once an important military
fortress, opponents of the name Occitanie given to an enlarged region are
determined to resist. Credit Capucine Granier-Deferre for The New York
Times

PERPIGNAN, France — What’s in a name? A lot apparently, at least if you ask
French Catalans who live in the country’s southwest corner, here around
Perpignan.

When the French Parliament approved a plan to consolidate the country’s
regions, in order to increase their clout and cut red tape, it did more
than reduce the number to 13 from 22. It inflamed a crisis of Catalan
identity that has spread like wildfire from across the border with Spain
<http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/12/world/europe/catalan-independence-bid-looms-over-spains-coalition-efforts.html>,
where it is burning hot already.

Under the change, this region, Languedoc-Roussillon, combined with
neighboring Midi-Pyrénées, will take a new name: Occitanie (Occitania in
English), chosen after the regional authorities asked people to vote online
from a list of possibilities.

Simple enough. If only.

The 450,000 or so French Catalans — or Catalans of the North, as most
people here call themselves — regard the new name as erasing their presence
from the map. In Perpignan, which was once an important military fortress,
opponents of the name Occitania are determined to resist.
Photo
“A name gives identity, so this reform has made us a lot more aware of who
we really are, especially since we’re being told that our culture will be
buried under a name that has never been ours,” said Sylvia Andolfo, owner
of a pastry shop in Perpignan. Credit Capucine Granier-Deferre for The New
York Times

As the Oct. 1 deadline for the formal switch approaches, protests have
intensified. A major street demonstration is planned in Perpignan on
Saturday, as well as an appeal opposing the new name on the grounds of
discrimination before France
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories/france/index.html?inline=nyt-geo>’s
main administrative court, the Council of State.

The Catalans also want to at least add two words to the name Occitania:
“Pays Catalan,” or Catalan Land.

“A name gives identity, so this reform has made us a lot more aware of who
we really are, especially since we’re being told that our culture will be
buried under a name that has never been ours,” said Sylvia Andolfo, who
flew a Catalan flag outside her pastry shop here.

Occitania is a cultural rather than political term that dates to the Middle
Ages and refers to a vast area in southern Europe where people speak
Occitan, a Romance language derived from Latin.

However, Occitania “means nothing to us,” said Brice Lafontaine, the
president of a party here called Unitat Catalana. “We are the Catalans of
the North and we want to continue to exist as such.”

FRANCE

Bay of

Biscay

ITALY

OCCITANIA

LANGUEDOC-

ROUSSILLON

MIDI-

PYRÉNÉES

Marseille

Perpignan

ANDORRA

CORSICA

France

CATALONIA

Barcelona

Mediterranean Sea

SPAIN

Balearic Sea

SARDINIA

Italy

BALEARIC

ISLANDS

150 Miles

By The New York Times

Some here are also upset that Manuel Valls
<http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/11/world/europe/french-premier-presents-new-brand-of-socialism.html>,
the prime minister, has stayed on the sidelines of the debate. Mr. Valls
was born in Barcelona and speaks Catalan.

In fact, Mr. Lafontaine called Mr. Valls “a traitor” to the Catalan cause.
“Can you imagine a Frenchman going to Quebec and fighting against the
recognition of French culture there?” Mr. Lafontaine said. “That is just
what Manuel Valls has done here.”

The protests over the name change have received some institutional support.
Some local mayors agreed to add signs that read “the Catalan” below town
names along roads.

During a recent concert <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPs0H2WQSCk>, the
singer Hugues Di Francesco went backstage and emerged with a Catalan flag.
“We have our identity and culture, so don’t erase us from the map,” he told
the crowd before performing a protest song that has become a summer hit
here.

The crowd joined in to sing the chorus: “We’re not Occitans, we’re
Catalans, we’re not going to change our accent nor the color of our blood.”
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Catalans in this part of France became subjects of King Louis XIV of France
under a 1659 peace treaty that enlarged the country and created a new
border with Spain along the Pyrenees.

The latest redrawing of France’s administrative map, and the dispute it has
caused here, coincide with an unrelated territorial conflict on the
southern side of the Pyrenees over whether the Catalan regional government,
based in Barcelona, can split from Spain.

Most people here, however, define their Catalan identity as cultural rather
than political. For instance, Ms. Andolfo, the pastry shop owner, while
feeling sympathy for the Catalans who want to separate from Spain,
expressed no desire to see French Catalans break away from France.

Ms. Andolfo understands the Catalan language but doesn’t speak it, even
though some in her family fled Catalonia for France in 1939. They were
among the nearly 500,000 Spaniards escaping Gen. Francisco Franco, who rose
to power after Spain’s civil war.

“My grandmother never spoke to me in Catalan because she always kept her
fear of Franco, and believed that French was my future, the way for me to
find a job,” Ms. Andolfo said. Still, Ms. Andolfo put her own daughter in a
bilingual school to learn French and Catalan.
Photo
Players from the Catalan Dragons, Perpignan’s rugby league club. Some local
entrepreneurs say it is unrealistic to expect the Occitanie region to give
full recognition to Catalan culture. Credit Capucine Granier-Deferre for
The New York Times

French Catalans share folkloric dances and other traditions with the
Catalans across the border. But French is the only language heard around
town, except in the district of Saint Jacques, whose Gypsy community speaks
Catalan.

There is also some discontent over the name changes in other regions. In
eastern France, for instance, the historical regional names Alsace,
Lorraine and Champagne-Ardenne are being administratively replaced by
Grand-Est, or Great East, as part of a three-way merger to create a much
larger region bordering Germany.

“There are many people around the country who are unhappy about the new
names, but our case is more serious, because the name has triggered not
only a feeling of exclusion, but also a situation of discrimination,”
argued Hélène Legrais, a Perpignan writer whose historical novels are
mostly about French Catalans.

However, some Catalan entrepreneurs here believe it was unrealistic to
expect Catalans, who now represent less than one-tenth of the population of
the enlarged region, to persuade other inhabitants to give full recognition
to Catalan culture.

Rather than mentioning either Occitan or Catalan, they say, the enlarged
region could have opted for Pyrénées-Méditérranée, a name that is
culturally neutral but highlights the region’s mountains and sea.

“Occitania really doesn’t suit me, but also because I believe such a name
is hard to sell as a brand internationally,” said Bernard Guasch, the owner
of a meat company and a rugby league club called the Catalans Dragons. “In
an environment of globalization, we should have taken full advantage of our
two amazing natural assets, for which everybody envies us and nobody
disputes.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/09/world/europe/occitanie-france-catalans.html?ref=world&_r=0

-- 
=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+

 Harold F. Schiffman

Professor Emeritus of
 Dravidian Linguistics and Culture
Dept. of South Asia Studies
University of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia, PA 19104-6305

Phone:  (215) 898-7475
Fax:  (215) 573-2138

Email:  haroldfs at gmail.com
http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/

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