Vergonha
Encyclopedia
La vergonha is what Occitans call the effects of various policies of the government of France
on its citizens whose mother tongue was a so-called patois
, specifically langue d'oc. Vergonha is being made to reject and feel ashamed of one's (or one's parents') non-French language
through official exclusion, humiliation at school and rejection
from the media
as organized and sanctioned by French political leaders, from Henri Grégoire
onward. Vergonha, which is still a taboo topic in France where some still refuse to admit such discrimination ever existed, can be seen as the result of an attempted linguicide. As a matter of fact, native Occitan speakers, who in 1860, before schooling was made compulsory in French (1882), represented more than 39% of the whole French population, as opposed to 52% of francophones
proper, went down to 26 to 36% in the 1920s, with the figure free-falling to less than 7% in 1993.
, non-French languages in France were reduced in stature when it became compulsory "to deliver and execute all [legal] acts in the French language" (de prononcer et expedier tous actes en langaige françoys). Originally meant as a way to eliminate Latin
in official documents — few 16th-century French subjects were educated and familiar with Latin — it also stated that French and only French was legal in the kingdom (en langage maternel françoys et non aultrement).
s in modern France and disparaging them as mere local and often strictly oral dialects was formalized with Abbé Grégoire's Report on the necessity and means to annihilate the patois and to universalise the use of the French language , which he presented on June 4, 1794 to the National Convention
; thereafter, all languages other than French were officially banned in the administration and schools for the sake of linguistically
uniting post-Bastille Day
France. At the time, only one tenth of the population were fluent in French. In reference to "patois", Jean Jaurès
famously claimed that "one names patois the language of a defeated nation". According to the Chambers Dictionary
, the origin of the term is disputed but could be a "corruption of patrois, from LL
patriensis, a local inhabitant".
Four months earlier (January 27), Bertrand Barère de Vieuzac
, although an Occitan from Tarbes
himself, claimed before this same Convention that
reveals in the Foreword to his Anthologie:
In the 20th century, the départements were grouped into régions
, to create a level of government between the departmental and national. While the régions were intended to replace the old provinces, they were not necessarily formed along the same boundaries. As the map shows, there were eleven Occitan-speaking enclaves in the pre-1789 state, such as the powerful lands of Languedoc
and Gascony
, but they were divided into seven régions with no regard whatsoever for cultural and linguistic identities. This is how Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur
was created out of portions of five Occitan provinces and three capitals were scrapped in favour of Marseille
; and Auvergne
came to comprise both native and Oïl-language
entities. Meanwhile, the city of Nantes
was administratively removed from Brittany
, of which it had been one of two traditional capitals (along with Rennes
), and the city of Toulouse
was not included in the région of Languedoc-Roussillon
, though it had historically been located in that province.
Many of the régions contain hyphenated names, reflecting the merging of multiple historically distinct areas. This is true for four of the seven régions of Occitania: Languedoc-Roussillon, Midi-Pyrénées
, Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur and Rhône-Alpes
.
implemented a series of strict measures to further weaken regional languages in France, as shown in Bernard Poignant's 1998 report to Lionel Jospin
. These included children being given punishments by their teachers for speaking Occitan in a Toulouse
school or Breton
in Brittany
. Art. 30 of Loi d'éducation française (French Teaching Law, 1851) stated that: "It is strictly forbidden to speak patois during classes or breaks." As Pêr-Jakez Helias
(1914-1995), the author of the 1975 best-selling novel Le Cheval d'orgueil (The Horse of Pride), recalls in this interview ,
Among other well-known humiliations was clogging young rebels, namely hanging a clog (sabot) around their necks as this young lady recalls her grandparents telling her:
This practice was referred to as le symbole
by officials and "la vache" (the cow) by pupils, with offenders becoming "vachards". Many objects were used, not just clogs: horseshoes, shingles, slates, wooden plates with a message, coins with a cross on them. The following are official instructions from a Finistère
sub-prefect to teachers in 1845: "And remember, Gents: you were given your position in order to kill the Breton language." The prefect of Basses-Pyrénées in the French Basque Country
wrote in 1846: "Our schools in the Basque Country are particularly meant to substitute the Basque language
with French..."
Resorting to the practice of clogging is confirmed by the Autonomes de Solidarité Laïques website :
As for signs, they were also found in Poitou
schools :
The Conselh de Representacion Generala de la Joventut d'Òc (CRGJOC, General Representation Council of the Occitan Youth), through the Youth of European Nationalities website , reports that
The Confolentés Occitan (Occitan-speaking Limousin
) website testifies of the methods used by French authorities over the past century or so:
In the school of Camélas in Northern Catalonia
, a former pupil reports,
Abbé Grégoire's own terms were kept to designate the languages of France: while Breton referred to the dialect spoken in Brittany, the word patois encompassed all Romance
dialects such as Occitan and Franco-Provençal. In his report, Corsican
and Alsatian
were dismissed as "highly degenerate" (très-dégénérés) forms of Italian
and German
, respectively. As a result, some people still call their non-French language patois, encouraged by the fact they were never taught how to write it and made to think only French exists in the written form.
, Chief Education Officer Dantzer recommended that "the Church give first communion
only to French-speaking children".
In the same year, prime minister Émile Combes
, himself an Occitan, told the prefects of Morbihan, Côtes-du-Nord
and Finistère
that:
philology
and professor at the University of the Balearic Islands
Jaume Corbera Pou argues,
, the President of France and a native of an Occitan-speaking region, declared that "there is no room for regional languages in a France whose fate is to mark Europe with its seal".
In a pre-election speech in Lorient
, on March 14, 1981, François Mitterrand
asserted that:
These declarations however were not followed by any effective measures.
In 1992, after some questioned the unconstitutional segregation of minority languages in France, Art. II of the 1958 French Constitution was revised so that "the language of the Republic is French" (la langue de la République est le français). This was achieved only months before the Council of Europe
passed the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages
, which Jacques Chirac
ignored despite Lionel Jospin
's plea for the Constitutional Council
to amend Art. II and include all vernacular languages spoken on French soil. Yet again, non-French languages in France were denied official recognition and deemed too dangerous for the unity of the country, and Occitans
, Basques, Corsicans, Catalans, Bretons, Alsatians
, Savoyards and Flemings have still no explicit legal right to conduct public affairs in their regional languages within their home lands. The text was again refused by majority
deputies on January 18, 2008, after the Académie française
voiced their absolute disapproval of so-called regional languages, which recognition they perceive as "an attack on French national identity".
On the UMP
website, Nicolas Sarkozy
denies any mistreatment of regional languages. In a pre-electoral
speech in Besançon
on March 13, 2007 he claimed:
His Socialist
rival, Ségolène Royal
, on the contrary, declared herself ready to sign the Charter in a March 2007 speech in Iparralde
for the sake of cultural variety in France:
Government of France
The government of the French Republic is a semi-presidential system determined by the French Constitution of the fifth Republic. The nation declares itself to be an "indivisible, secular, democratic, and social Republic"...
on its citizens whose mother tongue was a so-called patois
Patois
Patois is any language that is considered nonstandard, although the term is not formally defined in linguistics. It can refer to pidgins, creoles, dialects, and other forms of native or local speech, but not commonly to jargon or slang, which are vocabulary-based forms of cant...
, specifically langue d'oc. Vergonha is being made to reject and feel ashamed of one's (or one's parents') non-French language
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
through official exclusion, humiliation at school and rejection
Social rejection
Social rejection occurs when an individual is deliberately excluded from a social relationship or social interaction. The topic includes both interpersonal rejection and romantic rejection. A person can be rejected on an individual basis or by an entire group of people...
from the media
Media (communication)
In communications, media are the storage and transmission channels or tools used to store and deliver information or data...
as organized and sanctioned by French political leaders, from Henri Grégoire
Henri Grégoire
Henri Grégoire , often referred to as Abbé Grégoire, was a French Roman Catholic priest, constitutional bishop of Blois and a revolutionary leader...
onward. Vergonha, which is still a taboo topic in France where some still refuse to admit such discrimination ever existed, can be seen as the result of an attempted linguicide. As a matter of fact, native Occitan speakers, who in 1860, before schooling was made compulsory in French (1882), represented more than 39% of the whole French population, as opposed to 52% of francophones
Francophone
The adjective francophone means French-speaking, typically as primary language, whether referring to individuals, groups, or places. Often, the word is used as a noun to describe a natively French-speaking person....
proper, went down to 26 to 36% in the 1920s, with the figure free-falling to less than 7% in 1993.
16th to 18th century
Beginning in 1539 with Art. 111 of the Ordinance of Villers-CotterêtsOrdinance of Villers-Cotterêts
The Ordinance of Villers-Cotterêts is an extensive piece of reform legislation signed into law by Francis I of France on August 10, 1539 in the city of Villers-Cotterêts....
, non-French languages in France were reduced in stature when it became compulsory "to deliver and execute all [legal] acts in the French language" (de prononcer et expedier tous actes en langaige françoys). Originally meant as a way to eliminate Latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
in official documents — few 16th-century French subjects were educated and familiar with Latin — it also stated that French and only French was legal in the kingdom (en langage maternel françoys et non aultrement).
Abbé Grégoire's "Report on the necessity and means to annihilate the patois"
The deliberate process of eradicating non-French vernacularVernacular
A vernacular is the native language or native dialect of a specific population, as opposed to a language of wider communication that is not native to the population, such as a national language or lingua franca.- Etymology :The term is not a recent one...
s in modern France and disparaging them as mere local and often strictly oral dialects was formalized with Abbé Grégoire's Report on the necessity and means to annihilate the patois and to universalise the use of the French language , which he presented on June 4, 1794 to the National Convention
National Convention
During the French Revolution, the National Convention or Convention, in France, comprised the constitutional and legislative assembly which sat from 20 September 1792 to 26 October 1795 . It held executive power in France during the first years of the French First Republic...
; thereafter, all languages other than French were officially banned in the administration and schools for the sake of linguistically
Linguistics
Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. Linguistics can be broadly broken into three categories or subfields of study: language form, language meaning, and language in context....
uniting post-Bastille Day
Bastille Day
Bastille Day is the name given in English-speaking countries to the French National Day, which is celebrated on 14 July of each year. In France, it is formally called La Fête Nationale and commonly le quatorze juillet...
France. At the time, only one tenth of the population were fluent in French. In reference to "patois", Jean Jaurès
Jean Jaurès
Jean Léon Jaurès was a French Socialist leader. Initially an Opportunist Republican, he evolved into one of the first social democrats, becoming the leader, in 1902, of the French Socialist Party, which opposed Jules Guesde's revolutionary Socialist Party of France. Both parties merged in 1905 in...
famously claimed that "one names patois the language of a defeated nation". According to the Chambers Dictionary
Chambers Dictionary
The Chambers Dictionary was first published by W. and R. Chambers as Chambers's English Dictionary in 1872. It was an expanded version of Chambers's Etymological Dictionary of 1867, compiled by James Donald...
, the origin of the term is disputed but could be a "corruption of patrois, from LL
Vulgar Latin
Vulgar Latin is any of the nonstandard forms of Latin from which the Romance languages developed. Because of its nonstandard nature, it had no official orthography. All written works used Classical Latin, with very few exceptions...
patriensis, a local inhabitant".
Four months earlier (January 27), Bertrand Barère de Vieuzac
Bertrand Barère de Vieuzac
Bertrand Barère de Vieuzac was a French politician and journalist, one of the most notorious members of the National Convention during the French Revolution.-Early career:He was born at Tarbes in Gascony...
, although an Occitan from Tarbes
Tarbes
Tarbes is a commune in the Hautes-Pyrénées department in south-western France.It is part of the historical region of Gascony. It is the second largest metropolitan area of Midi-Pyrénées, with 110,000 inhabitants....
himself, claimed before this same Convention that
The monarchy had reasons to resemble the Tower of BabelTower of BabelThe Tower of Babel , according to the Book of Genesis, was an enormous tower built in the plain of Shinar .According to the biblical account, a united humanity of the generations following the Great Flood, speaking a single language and migrating from the east, came to the land of Shinar, where...
; in democracyDemocracyDemocracy is generally defined as a form of government in which all adult citizens have an equal say in the decisions that affect their lives. Ideally, this includes equal participation in the proposal, development and passage of legislation into law...
, leaving the citizens to ignore the national language [that of Paris], unable to control the power, is betraying the motherland... For a free people, the tongue must be one and the same for everyone. [...] How much money have we not spent already for the translation of the laws of the first two national assembliesNational Assembly (French Revolution)During the French Revolution, the National Assembly , which existed from June 17 to July 9, 1789, was a transitional body between the Estates-General and the National Constituent Assembly.-Background:...
in the various dialects of France! As if it were our duty to maintain those barbaric jargons and those coarse lingos that can only serve fanatics and counter-revolutionaries now!
The end of traditional provinces
This policy can be noted by the way France's internal borders were redrawn, creating 83 départements. The law was passed on December 22, 1789 and took effect the following year, on March 4, 1790. As a result, the centuries-old singularities of the various Occitan-speaking parts were overlooked and shaken in a deliberate effort by the newly-formed government to weaken and parcel out long-established feudal domains so that republican France would subdue traditional allegiances, as Antonin PerbòscAntonin Perbòsc
Antonin Perbòsc was a poet from Occitania. He was born in Labarthe, Tarn-et-Garonne in 1861 and died in 1944 in Montauban. His first job was as a primary school teacher in Comberouger, a small town 30km off Montauban, and later in Loze, near Villefranche-de-Rouergue...
reveals in the Foreword to his Anthologie:
When the Constituante (National Constituent AssemblyNational Constituent AssemblyThe National Constituent Assembly was formed from the National Assembly on 9 July 1789, during the first stages of the French Revolution. It dissolved on 30 September 1791 and was succeeded by the Legislative Assembly.-Background:...
) created the départements, their goal was clearly to erase the old geographical and historical distinction of the provinces; however this goal was not as perfectly met as some would have liked: in general, the départements were made up of pieces of existing provinces, quite seldom of the reunion of parts from different provinces. If one could criticize this territorial division for being too arbitrary and too geometric, what can be said of Tarn-et-GaronneTarn-et-GaronneTarn-et-Garonne is a French department in the southwest of France. It is traversed by the Rivers Tarn and Garonne, from which it takes its name.-History:...
, born of a sénatus-consule (a law by the Senate of France) on November 2, 1808? Of course, one may think that the Centralisateur (Napoleon BonaparteNapoleon I of FranceNapoleon Bonaparte was a French military and political leader during the latter stages of the French Revolution.As Napoleon I, he was Emperor of the French from 1804 to 1815...
) felt real pleasure showing he could do even better than the centralisateurs of the National Constituent Assembly. With fragments of QuercyQuercyQuercy is a former province of France located in the country's southwest, bounded on the north by Limousin, on the west by Périgord and Agenais, on the south by Gascony and Languedoc, and on the east by Rouergue and Auvergne....
, RouergueRouergueRouergue is a former province of France, bounded on the north by Auvergne, on the south and southwest by Languedoc, on the east by Gévaudan and on the west by Quercy...
, AgenAgenAgen is a commune in the Lot-et-Garonne department in Aquitaine in south-western France. It lies on the river Garonne southeast of Bordeaux. It is the capital of the department.-Economy:The town has a higher level of unemployment than the national average...
ais, Lomagne, GasconyGasconyGascony is an area of southwest France that was part of the "Province of Guyenne and Gascony" prior to the French Revolution. The region is vaguely defined and the distinction between Guyenne and Gascony is unclear; sometimes they are considered to overlap, and sometimes Gascony is considered a...
and LanguedocLanguedocLanguedoc is a former province of France, now continued in the modern-day régions of Languedoc-Roussillon and Midi-Pyrénées in the south of France, and whose capital city was Toulouse, now in Midi-Pyrénées. It had an area of approximately 42,700 km² .-Geographical Extent:The traditional...
, creating a new unit so little vast and yet so diverse of soil, language and race, what a great idea! And maybe the audacious half-god had only one regret: coming a little too late to redesign according to this pattern all the provinces of old France...
In the 20th century, the départements were grouped into régions
Régions of France
France is divided into 27 administrative regions , 22 of which are in Metropolitan France, and five of which are overseas. Corsica is a territorial collectivity , but is considered a region in mainstream usage, and is even shown as such on the INSEE website...
, to create a level of government between the departmental and national. While the régions were intended to replace the old provinces, they were not necessarily formed along the same boundaries. As the map shows, there were eleven Occitan-speaking enclaves in the pre-1789 state, such as the powerful lands of Languedoc
Languedoc
Languedoc is a former province of France, now continued in the modern-day régions of Languedoc-Roussillon and Midi-Pyrénées in the south of France, and whose capital city was Toulouse, now in Midi-Pyrénées. It had an area of approximately 42,700 km² .-Geographical Extent:The traditional...
and Gascony
Gascony
Gascony is an area of southwest France that was part of the "Province of Guyenne and Gascony" prior to the French Revolution. The region is vaguely defined and the distinction between Guyenne and Gascony is unclear; sometimes they are considered to overlap, and sometimes Gascony is considered a...
, but they were divided into seven régions with no regard whatsoever for cultural and linguistic identities. This is how Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur
Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur
Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur or PACA is one of the 27 regions of France.It is made up of:* the former French province of Provence* the former papal territory of Avignon, known as Comtat Venaissin...
was created out of portions of five Occitan provinces and three capitals were scrapped in favour of Marseille
Marseille
Marseille , known in antiquity as Massalia , is the second largest city in France, after Paris, with a population of 852,395 within its administrative limits on a land area of . The urban area of Marseille extends beyond the city limits with a population of over 1,420,000 on an area of...
; and Auvergne
Auvergne (région)
Auvergne is one of the 27 administrative regions of France. It comprises the 4 departments of Allier, Puy de Dome, Cantal and Haute Loire.The current administrative region of Auvergne is larger than the historical province of Auvergne, and includes provinces and areas that historically were not...
came to comprise both native and Oïl-language
Langues d'oïl
The langues d'oïl or langues d'oui , in English the Oïl or Oui languages, are a dialect continuum that includes standard French and its closest autochthonous relatives spoken today in the northern half of France, southern Belgium, and the Channel Islands...
entities. Meanwhile, the city of Nantes
Nantes
Nantes is a city in western France, located on the Loire River, from the Atlantic coast. The city is the 6th largest in France, while its metropolitan area ranks 8th with over 800,000 inhabitants....
was administratively removed from Brittany
Brittany
Brittany is a cultural and administrative region in the north-west of France. Previously a kingdom and then a duchy, Brittany was united to the Kingdom of France in 1532 as a province. Brittany has also been referred to as Less, Lesser or Little Britain...
, of which it had been one of two traditional capitals (along with Rennes
Rennes
Rennes is a city in the east of Brittany in northwestern France. Rennes is the capital of the region of Brittany, as well as the Ille-et-Vilaine department.-History:...
), and the city of Toulouse
Toulouse
Toulouse is a city in the Haute-Garonne department in southwestern FranceIt lies on the banks of the River Garonne, 590 km away from Paris and half-way between the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea...
was not included in the région of Languedoc-Roussillon
Languedoc-Roussillon
Languedoc-Roussillon is one of the 27 regions of France. It comprises five departments, and borders the other French regions of Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur, Rhône-Alpes, Auvergne, Midi-Pyrénées on the one side, and Spain, Andorra and the Mediterranean sea on the other side.-Geography:The region is...
, though it had historically been located in that province.
Many of the régions contain hyphenated names, reflecting the merging of multiple historically distinct areas. This is true for four of the seven régions of Occitania: Languedoc-Roussillon, Midi-Pyrénées
Midi-Pyrénées
Midi-Pyrénées is the largest region of metropolitan France by area, larger than the Netherlands or Denmark.Midi-Pyrénées has no historical or geographical unity...
, Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur and Rhône-Alpes
Rhône-Alpes
Rhône-Alpes is one of the 27 regions of France, located on the eastern border of the country, towards the south. The region was named after the Rhône River and the Alps mountain range. Its capital, Lyon, is the second-largest metropolitan area in France after Paris...
.
 |
Traditional Occitan provinces: 1. Béarn Béarn Béarn is one of the traditional provinces of France, located in the Pyrenees mountains and in the plain at their feet, in southwest France. Along with the three Basque provinces of Soule, Lower Navarre, and Labourd, the principality of Bidache, as well as small parts of Gascony, it forms in the... (Pau) — 6,800 km² (est.) 2. Guyenne Guyenne Guyenne or Guienne , , ; Occitan Guiana ) is a vaguely defined historic region of south-western France. The Province of Guyenne, sometimes called the Province of Guyenne and Gascony, was a large province of pre-revolutionary France.... & Gascony (Bordeaux Bordeaux Bordeaux is a port city on the Garonne River in the Gironde department in southwestern France.The Bordeaux-Arcachon-Libourne metropolitan area, has a population of 1,010,000 and constitutes the sixth-largest urban area in France. It is the capital of the Aquitaine region, as well as the prefecture... ) — 69,400 km² (est.) 3. Limousin Limousin (province) Limousin is one of the traditional provinces of France around the city of Limoges. Limousin lies in the foothills of the western edge of the Massif Central, with cold weather in the winter... (Limoges Limoges Limoges |Limousin]] dialect of Occitan) is a city and commune, the capital of the Haute-Vienne department and the administrative capital of the Limousin région in west-central France.... ) — 9,700 km² (est.) 4. County of Marche County of Marche The County of Marche was a medieval French county, approximately corresponding to the modern département of Creuse.Marche first appeared as a separate fief about the middle of the 10th century, when William III, Duke of Aquitaine, gave it to one of his vassals named Boso, who took the title of... (Guéret Guéret Guéret is a commune and the prefecture of the Creuse department in the Limousin region in central France.-Geography:A light industrial town, the largest in the department, with a big woodland and a little farming not far from the town centre... ) — 7,600 km² (est.) 5. Auvergne Auvergne (province) Auvergne was a historic province in south central France. It was originally the feudal domain of the Counts of Auvergne. It is now the geographical and cultural area that corresponds to the former province.... (Riom Riom Riom is a commune in the Puy-de-Dôme department in Auvergne in central France. It is a sub-prefecture of the department.-History:Until the French Revolution, Riom was the capital of the province of Auvergne, and the seat of the dukes of Auvergne. The city was of Gaulish origin, the Roman Ricomagus... ) — 19,300 km² (est.) 6. Languedoc (Toulouse) — 45,300 km² (est.) 7. Dauphiné Dauphiné The Dauphiné or Dauphiné Viennois is a former province in southeastern France, whose area roughly corresponded to that of the present departments of :Isère, :Drôme, and :Hautes-Alpes.... (Grenoble Grenoble Grenoble is a city in southeastern France, at the foot of the French Alps where the river Drac joins the Isère. Located in the Rhône-Alpes region, Grenoble is the capital of the department of Isère... ) — 8,500 km² (est.) 8. County of Nice Nice Nice is the fifth most populous city in France, after Paris, Marseille, Lyon and Toulouse, with a population of 348,721 within its administrative limits on a land area of . The urban area of Nice extends beyond the administrative city limits with a population of more than 955,000 on an area of... — 3,600 km² (est.) 9. Provence Provence Provence ; Provençal: Provença in classical norm or Prouvènço in Mistralian norm) is a region of south eastern France on the Mediterranean adjacent to Italy. It is part of the administrative région of Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur... (Aix-en-Provence Aix-en-Provence Aix , or Aix-en-Provence to distinguish it from other cities built over hot springs, is a city-commune in southern France, some north of Marseille. It is in the region of Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur, in the département of Bouches-du-Rhône, of which it is a subprefecture. The population of Aix is... ) — 22,700 km² (est.) 10. Comtat Venaissin Comtat Venaissin The Comtat Venaissin, often called the Comtat for short , is the former name of the region around the city of Avignon in what is now the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region of France. It comprised roughly the area between the Rhône, the Durance and Mont Ventoux, with a small exclave located to the... (Carpentras Carpentras Carpentras is a commune in the Vaucluse department in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region in southeastern France.It stands on the banks of the Auzon... ) — 3,600 km² (est.) 11. County of Foix County of Foix The County of Foix was an independent medieval fief in southern France, and later a province of France, whose territory corresponded roughly the eastern part of the modern département of Ariège .... (Foix Foix Foix is a commune, the capital of the Ariège department in southwestern France. It is the least populous administrative centre of a department in all of France, although it is only very slightly smaller than Privas... ) — 3,300 km² (est.) Régions of France: A. Aquitaine Aquitaine Aquitaine , archaic Guyenne/Guienne , is one of the 27 regions of France, in the south-western part of metropolitan France, along the Atlantic Ocean and the Pyrenees mountain range on the border with Spain. It comprises the 5 departments of Dordogne, :Lot et Garonne, :Pyrénées-Atlantiques, Landes... (Bordeaux) — 41,308 km² B. Limousin Limousin (région) Limousin is one of the 27 regions of France. It is composed of three départements: Corrèze, Creuse and the Haute-Vienne.Situated largely in the Massif Central, as of January 1st 2008, the Limousin comprised 740,743 inhabitants on nearly 17 000 km2, making it the second least populated region of... (Limoges) — 16,942 km² C. Auvergne (Clermont-Ferrand Clermont-Ferrand Clermont-Ferrand is a city and commune of France, in the Auvergne region, with a population of 140,700 . Its metropolitan area had 409,558 inhabitants at the 1999 census. It is the prefecture of the Puy-de-Dôme department... ) — 26,013 km² D. Rhône-Alpes (Lyon Lyon Lyon , is a city in east-central France in the Rhône-Alpes region, situated between Paris and Marseille. Lyon is located at from Paris, from Marseille, from Geneva, from Turin, and from Barcelona. The residents of the city are called Lyonnais.... ) — 43,698 km² E. Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur (Marseille) — 31,400 km² F. Languedoc-Roussillon (Montpellier Montpellier -Neighbourhoods:Since 2001, Montpellier has been divided into seven official neighbourhoods, themselves divided into sub-neighbourhoods. Each of them possesses a neighbourhood council.... ) — 27,376 km² G. Midi-Pyrénées (Toulouse) — 45,348 km² - - -: Occitan / Franco-Provençal Franco-Provençal language Franco-Provençal , Arpitan, or Romand is a Romance language with several distinct dialects that form a linguistic sub-group separate from Langue d'Oïl and Langue d'Oc. The name Franco-Provençal was given to the language by G.I... linguistic limit |
- Toulouse lost 76% of its territory of Languedoc
- Bordeaux lost a little more than half its territory of Gascony and Guyenne
- Limoges increased its administrative area by 43%
- Guéret, Pau, Foix, Riom, Aix-en-Provence, Grenoble, Carpentras (1791) and Nice (1860) lost their status as capitals
- Clermont-Ferrand, Montpellier and Marseille became capitals of Auvergne, Languedoc-Roussillon and Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur, respectively
- Languedoc was divided into five unequal parts, the largest of which forming Languedoc-Roussillon with the CatalanCatalan languageCatalan is a Romance language, the national and only official language of Andorra and a co-official language in the Spanish autonomous communities of Catalonia, the Balearic Islands and Valencian Community, where it is known as Valencian , as well as in the city of Alghero, on the Italian island...
-speaking province of RoussillonRoussillonRoussillon is one of the historical counties of the former Principality of Catalonia, corresponding roughly to the present-day southern French département of Pyrénées-Orientales... - The County of Marche, Béarn, the County of Foix and subsequently Comtat Venaissin and the County of Nice lost their autonomy
- Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur is made up of Provence and the County of Nice and bits and pieces of three other provinces
- The north of Languedoc and Comtat Venaissin and the western half of Dauphiné became linguistic minorities in the new Rhône-Alpes region
- The Occitan provinces spread over a little less than 200,000 km²
- Gascony and Guyenne, Languedoc, Provence and Auvergne accounted for 78.4% of Occitania in terms of land area, with Gascony and Guyenne making up for over a third of the total surface and Languedoc almost a quarter
School discipline
In the 1880s, Jules FerryJules Ferry
Jules François Camille Ferry was a French statesman and republican. He was a promoter of laicism and colonial expansion.- Early life :Born in Saint-Dié, in the Vosges département, France, he studied law, and was called to the bar at Paris in 1854, but soon went into politics, contributing to...
implemented a series of strict measures to further weaken regional languages in France, as shown in Bernard Poignant's 1998 report to Lionel Jospin
Lionel Jospin
Lionel Jospin is a French politician, who served as Prime Minister of France from 1997 to 2002.Jospin was the Socialist Party candidate for President of France in the elections of 1995 and 2002. He was narrowly defeated in the final runoff election by Jacques Chirac in 1995...
. These included children being given punishments by their teachers for speaking Occitan in a Toulouse
Toulouse
Toulouse is a city in the Haute-Garonne department in southwestern FranceIt lies on the banks of the River Garonne, 590 km away from Paris and half-way between the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea...
school or Breton
Breton language
Breton is a Celtic language spoken in Brittany , France. Breton is a Brythonic language, descended from the Celtic British language brought from Great Britain to Armorica by migrating Britons during the Early Middle Ages. Like the other Brythonic languages, Welsh and Cornish, it is classified as...
in Brittany
Brittany
Brittany is a cultural and administrative region in the north-west of France. Previously a kingdom and then a duchy, Brittany was united to the Kingdom of France in 1532 as a province. Brittany has also been referred to as Less, Lesser or Little Britain...
. Art. 30 of Loi d'éducation française (French Teaching Law, 1851) stated that: "It is strictly forbidden to speak patois during classes or breaks." As Pêr-Jakez Helias
Pêr-Jakez Helias
Pêr-Jakez Helias, baptised Pierre-Jacques Hélias, nom de plume Pierre-Jakez Hélias was a Breton stage actor, journalist, author, poet, and writer for radio who worked in the French and Breton languages....
(1914-1995), the author of the 1975 best-selling novel Le Cheval d'orgueil (The Horse of Pride), recalls in this interview ,
Now I know, I learned that there was a government policy which goal was obviously to make France one and indivisible, and as a result regional languages had to disappear. But I didn't know it then and maybe the teachers of the Third RepublicFrench Third RepublicThe French Third Republic was the republican government of France from 1870, when the Second French Empire collapsed due to the French defeat in the Franco-Prussian War, to 1940, when France was overrun by Nazi Germany during World War II, resulting in the German and Italian occupations of France...
did, though I asked some of them and they all denied it. Their own job was to teach us French. And consequently, while attending school, we were required to speak French. Whenever we used Breton instead, we weren't doing our share and so we deserved to be expelled. Period.
Among other well-known humiliations was clogging young rebels, namely hanging a clog (sabot) around their necks as this young lady recalls her grandparents telling her:
My grandparents speak Breton too, though not with me. As children, they used to have their fingers smacked if they happened to say a word in Breton. Back then, the French of the Republic, one and indivisible, was to be heard in all schools and those who dared challenge this policy were humiliated with having to wear a clog around their necks or kneel down on a ruler under a sign that read: "It is forbidden to spit on the ground and speak Breton". That's the reason why some older folks won't transmit the language to their children: it brings trouble upon yourself...
This practice was referred to as le symbole
Symbole
The symbole, also called ar vuoc'h , was an object used by Francophone headmasters in public and private schools in Brittany, Occitania and North Catalonia as a means of punishment toward students caught speaking Breton, Occitan or Catalan during the 19th and 20th centuries.Generally, the student...
by officials and "la vache" (the cow) by pupils, with offenders becoming "vachards". Many objects were used, not just clogs: horseshoes, shingles, slates, wooden plates with a message, coins with a cross on them. The following are official instructions from a Finistère
Finistère
Finistère is a département of France, in the extreme west of Brittany.-History:The name Finistère derives from the Latin Finis Terræ, meaning end of the earth, and may be compared with Land's End on the opposite side of the English Channel...
sub-prefect to teachers in 1845: "And remember, Gents: you were given your position in order to kill the Breton language." The prefect of Basses-Pyrénées in the French Basque Country
Northern Basque Country
The French Basque Country or Northern Basque Country situated within the western part of the French department of the Pyrénées-Atlantiques constitutes the north-eastern part of the Basque Country....
wrote in 1846: "Our schools in the Basque Country are particularly meant to substitute the Basque language
Basque language
Basque is the ancestral language of the Basque people, who inhabit the Basque Country, a region spanning an area in northeastern Spain and southwestern France. It is spoken by 25.7% of Basques in all territories...
with French..."
Resorting to the practice of clogging is confirmed by the Autonomes de Solidarité Laïques website :
School has had a unifying role inasmuch as speaking the "noble" language [French] reduced the use of regional dialects and patois. Let us mention the humiliation of children made to wear a clog around their necks for inadvertently speaking a word in the language of the people.
As for signs, they were also found in Poitou
Poitou
Poitou was a province of west-central France whose capital city was Poitiers.The region of Poitou was called Thifalia in the sixth century....
schools :
It seems as though Jules Ferry making school free and compulsory in 1881 materialized the work started four centuries earlier [with the Ordinance of Villers-CotterêtsOrdinance of Villers-CotterêtsThe Ordinance of Villers-Cotterêts is an extensive piece of reform legislation signed into law by Francis I of France on August 10, 1539 in the city of Villers-Cotterêts....
]; the method of repression and humiliation that was undertaken bore fruit with, for instance, the famous signs in school reading: "It is forbidden to spit on the ground and speak patois."
The Conselh de Representacion Generala de la Joventut d'Òc (CRGJOC, General Representation Council of the Occitan Youth), through the Youth of European Nationalities website , reports that
Our language [Occitan] lost its name, becoming some "patois", first at school and then in families through putting pressure on women in education ("Interdit de cracher par terre et de parler patois") with the French Third Republic, MussoliniBenito MussoliniBenito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini was an Italian politician who led the National Fascist Party and is credited with being one of the key figures in the creation of Fascism....
and FrancoFrancisco FrancoFrancisco Franco y Bahamonde was a Spanish general, dictator and head of state of Spain from October 1936 , and de facto regent of the nominally restored Kingdom of Spain from 1947 until his death in November, 1975...
.
The Confolentés Occitan (Occitan-speaking Limousin
Limousin (province)
Limousin is one of the traditional provinces of France around the city of Limoges. Limousin lies in the foothills of the western edge of the Massif Central, with cold weather in the winter...
) website testifies of the methods used by French authorities over the past century or so:
To help efface traditional regional identities, the Occitan language was not merely discouraged but actively suppressed. School pupils were punished well within living memory for speaking their native language on school premises.
The French administration managed to make the Occitan speakers think of their own language as a patois, i.e. as a corrupted form of French used only by the ignorant and uneducated. This alienating process is known as la vergonha ("the shame").
Many older speakers of Occitan still believe that their native language is no more than a shameful patois. This is one reason why you rarely hear it in public — or anywhere outside of the neighbourhood or family circle.
In the school of Camélas in Northern Catalonia
Northern Catalonia
Northern Catalonia is a term that is sometimes used, particularly in Catalan writings, to refer to the territory ceded to France by Spain through the signing of the Treaty of the Pyrenees in 1659...
, a former pupil reports,
Everyone but the teacher's children spoke CatalanCatalan languageCatalan is a Romance language, the national and only official language of Andorra and a co-official language in the Spanish autonomous communities of Catalonia, the Balearic Islands and Valencian Community, where it is known as Valencian , as well as in the city of Alghero, on the Italian island...
among themselves. We'd even get punished for that, because at the time, we all had to speak French. Be Clean, Speak French could be found written on the school's walls. And if you refused to speak French, they'd give you some sort of wooden sign to wear until death came, as we said, which meant the last offender, in the evening, had twenty lines to copy. We'd speak French in the schoolyard, and for the first ten metres of the way back home, for as long as we thought the teacher would overhear us, and then we'd switch back to our own mother tongue, Catalan.
In those times, Catalan speakers were rather despised. My generation associated speaking Catalan with a disadvantage, with being less than the others, with running the risk of being left behind on the social ladder, in short with bringing trouble.
Abbé Grégoire's own terms were kept to designate the languages of France: while Breton referred to the dialect spoken in Brittany, the word patois encompassed all Romance
Romance languages
The Romance languages are a branch of the Indo-European language family, more precisely of the Italic languages subfamily, comprising all the languages that descend from Vulgar Latin, the language of ancient Rome...
dialects such as Occitan and Franco-Provençal. In his report, Corsican
Corsican language
Corsican is a Italo-Dalmatian Romance language spoken and written on the islands of Corsica and northern Sardinia . Corsican is the traditional native language of the Corsican people, and was long the vernacular language alongside the Italian, official language in Corsica until 1859, which was...
and Alsatian
Alsatian language
Alsatian is a Low Alemannic German dialect spoken in most of Alsace, a region in eastern France which has passed between French and German control many times.-Language family:...
were dismissed as "highly degenerate" (très-dégénérés) forms of Italian
Italian language
Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...
and German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
, respectively. As a result, some people still call their non-French language patois, encouraged by the fact they were never taught how to write it and made to think only French exists in the written form.
Pressure on the church
In 1902, in a speech before the Conseil Général of MorbihanMorbihan
Morbihan is a department in Brittany, situated in the northwest of France. It is named after the Morbihan , the enclosed sea that is the principal feature of the coastline.-History:...
, Chief Education Officer Dantzer recommended that "the Church give first communion
First Communion
The First Communion, or First Holy Communion, is a Catholic Church ceremony. It is the colloquial name for a person's first reception of the Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist. Catholics believe this event to be very important, as the Eucharist is one of the central focuses of the Catholic Church...
only to French-speaking children".
In the same year, prime minister Émile Combes
Émile Combes
Émile Combes was a French statesman who led the Bloc des gauches's cabinet from June 1902 – January 1905.-Biography:Émile Combes was born in Roquecourbe, Tarn. He studied for the priesthood, but abandoned the idea before ordination. His anti-clericalism would later lead him into becoming a...
, himself an Occitan, told the prefects of Morbihan, Côtes-du-Nord
Côtes-d'Armor
Côtes-d'Armor is a department in the north of Brittany, in northwestern France.-History:Côtes-du-Nord was one of the original 83 departments created during the French Revolution on 4 March 1790. It was created from part of the former province of Brittany. Its name was changed in 1990 to...
and Finistère
Finistère
Finistère is a département of France, in the extreme west of Brittany.-History:The name Finistère derives from the Latin Finis Terræ, meaning end of the earth, and may be compared with Land's End on the opposite side of the English Channel...
that:
Breton priests want to keep their flock in ignorance by refusing to promote education and using only the Breton language in religious teachings and catechismCatechismA catechism , i.e. to indoctrinate) is a summary or exposition of doctrine, traditionally used in Christian religious teaching from New Testament times to the present...
. The Bretons will only be part of the Republic the day they start speaking French.
Mid-20th century to the present
As the doctor in CatalanCatalan language
Catalan is a Romance language, the national and only official language of Andorra and a co-official language in the Spanish autonomous communities of Catalonia, the Balearic Islands and Valencian Community, where it is known as Valencian , as well as in the city of Alghero, on the Italian island...
philology
Philology
Philology is the study of language in written historical sources; it is a combination of literary studies, history and linguistics.Classical philology is the philology of Greek and Classical Latin...
and professor at the University of the Balearic Islands
University of the Balearic Islands
The University of the Balearic Islands is a Balearic Spanish university, founded in 1978 and located in Palma on the island of Majorca.-History:...
Jaume Corbera Pou argues,
When at the mid-19th century, primary school is made compulsory all across the State, it is also made clear that only French will be taught, and the teachers will severely punish any pupil speaking in patois. The aim of the French educational system will consequently not be to dignify the pupils' natural humanity, developing their culture and teaching them to write their language, but rather to humiliate them and morally degrade them for the simple fact of being what tradition and their nature made them. The self-proclaimed country of the "Human rightsHuman rightsHuman rights are "commonly understood as inalienable fundamental rights to which a person is inherently entitled simply because she or he is a human being." Human rights are thus conceived as universal and egalitarian . These rights may exist as natural rights or as legal rights, in both national...
" will then ignore one of man's most fundamental rights, the right to be himself and speak the language of his nation. And with that attitude France, the "grande France" that calls itself the champion of liberty, will pass the 20th century, indifferent to the timid protest movements of the various linguistic communities it submitted and the literary prestige they may have given birth to.
[...]
France, that under FrancoFrancisco FrancoFrancisco Franco y Bahamonde was a Spanish general, dictator and head of state of Spain from October 1936 , and de facto regent of the nominally restored Kingdom of Spain from 1947 until his death in November, 1975...
's reign was seen here [in CataloniaCataloniaCatalonia is an autonomous community in northeastern Spain, with the official status of a "nationality" of Spain. Catalonia comprises four provinces: Barcelona, Girona, Lleida, and Tarragona. Its capital and largest city is Barcelona. Catalonia covers an area of 32,114 km² and has an...
] as the safe haven of freedom, has the miserable honour of being the State of EuropeEuropeEurope is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
— and probably the world — that succeeded best in the diabolical task of destroying its own ethnic and linguistic patrimony and moreover, of destroying human family bonds: many parents and children, or grandparents and grandchildren, have different languages, and the latter feel ashamed of the first because they speak a despicable patois, and no element of the grandparents' culture has been transmitted to the younger generation, as if they were born out of a completely new world. This is the French State that has just entered the 21st century, a country where stone monuments and natural landscapes are preserved and respected, but where many centuries of popular creation expressed in different tongues are on the brink of extinction. The "gloire" and the "grandeur" built on a genocide. No liberty, no equality, no fraternityLiberté, égalité, fraternitéLiberté, égalité, fraternité, French for "Liberty, equality, fraternity ", is the national motto of France, and is a typical example of a tripartite motto. Although it finds its origins in the French Revolution, it was then only one motto among others and was not institutionalized until the Third...
: just cultural extermination, this is the real motto of the French Republic.
Constitutional issues
In 1972, Georges PompidouGeorges Pompidou
Georges Jean Raymond Pompidou was a French politician. He was Prime Minister of France from 1962 to 1968, holding the longest tenure in this position, and later President of the French Republic from 1969 until his death in 1974.-Biography:...
, the President of France and a native of an Occitan-speaking region, declared that "there is no room for regional languages in a France whose fate is to mark Europe with its seal".
In a pre-election speech in Lorient
Lorient
Lorient, or L'Orient, is a commune and a seaport in the Morbihan department in Brittany in north-western France.-History:At the beginning of the 17th century, merchants who were trading with India had established warehouses in Port-Louis...
, on March 14, 1981, François Mitterrand
François Mitterrand
François Maurice Adrien Marie Mitterrand was the 21st President of the French Republic and ex officio Co-Prince of Andorra, serving from 1981 until 1995. He is the longest-serving President of France and, as leader of the Socialist Party, the only figure from the left so far elected President...
asserted that:
The time has come to give the languages and cultures of France an official status. The time has come to open school doors wide for them, to create regional radio and TV stations to let them be broadcast, to ensure they play all the role they deserve in public life.
These declarations however were not followed by any effective measures.
In 1992, after some questioned the unconstitutional segregation of minority languages in France, Art. II of the 1958 French Constitution was revised so that "the language of the Republic is French" (la langue de la République est le français). This was achieved only months before the Council of Europe
Council of Europe
The Council of Europe is an international organisation promoting co-operation between all countries of Europe in the areas of legal standards, human rights, democratic development, the rule of law and cultural co-operation...
passed the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages
European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages
The European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages is a European treaty adopted in 1992 under the auspices of the Council of Europe to protect and promote historical regional and minority languages in Europe...
, which Jacques Chirac
Jacques Chirac
Jacques René Chirac is a French politician who served as President of France from 1995 to 2007. He previously served as Prime Minister of France from 1974 to 1976 and from 1986 to 1988 , and as Mayor of Paris from 1977 to 1995.After completing his studies of the DEA's degree at the...
ignored despite Lionel Jospin
Lionel Jospin
Lionel Jospin is a French politician, who served as Prime Minister of France from 1997 to 2002.Jospin was the Socialist Party candidate for President of France in the elections of 1995 and 2002. He was narrowly defeated in the final runoff election by Jacques Chirac in 1995...
's plea for the Constitutional Council
Constitutional Council of France
The Constitutional Council is the highest constitutional authority in France. It was established by the Constitution of the Fifth Republic on 4 October 1958, and its duty is to ensure that the principles and rules of the constitution are upheld.Its main activity is to rule on whether proposed...
to amend Art. II and include all vernacular languages spoken on French soil. Yet again, non-French languages in France were denied official recognition and deemed too dangerous for the unity of the country, and Occitans
Occitania
Occitania , also sometimes lo País d'Òc, "the Oc Country"), is the region in southern Europe where Occitan was historically the main language spoken, and where it is sometimes still used, for the most part as a second language...
, Basques, Corsicans, Catalans, Bretons, Alsatians
Alsace
Alsace is the fifth-smallest of the 27 regions of France in land area , and the smallest in metropolitan France. It is also the seventh-most densely populated region in France and third most densely populated region in metropolitan France, with ca. 220 inhabitants per km²...
, Savoyards and Flemings have still no explicit legal right to conduct public affairs in their regional languages within their home lands. The text was again refused by majority
Union for a Popular Movement
The Union for a Popular Movement is a centre-right political party in France, and one of the two major contemporary political parties in the country along with the center-left Socialist Party...
deputies on January 18, 2008, after the Académie française
Académie française
L'Académie française , also called the French Academy, is the pre-eminent French learned body on matters pertaining to the French language. The Académie was officially established in 1635 by Cardinal Richelieu, the chief minister to King Louis XIII. Suppressed in 1793 during the French Revolution,...
voiced their absolute disapproval of so-called regional languages, which recognition they perceive as "an attack on French national identity".
On the UMP
Union for a Popular Movement
The Union for a Popular Movement is a centre-right political party in France, and one of the two major contemporary political parties in the country along with the center-left Socialist Party...
website, Nicolas Sarkozy
Nicolas Sarkozy
Nicolas Sarkozy is the 23rd and current President of the French Republic and ex officio Co-Prince of Andorra. He assumed the office on 16 May 2007 after defeating the Socialist Party candidate Ségolène Royal 10 days earlier....
denies any mistreatment of regional languages. In a pre-electoral
French presidential election, 2007
The 2007 French presidential election, the ninth of the Fifth French Republic was held to elect the successor to Jacques Chirac as president of France for a five-year term.The winner, decided on 5 and 6 May 2007, was Nicolas Sarkozy...
speech in Besançon
Besançon
Besançon , is the capital and principal city of the Franche-Comté region in eastern France. It had a population of about 237,000 inhabitants in the metropolitan area in 2008...
on March 13, 2007 he claimed:
If I'm elected, I won't be in favour of the European Charter for Regional Languages. I don't want a judge with a historical experience of the issue of minorities different from ours deciding tomorrow that a regional language must be considered as a language of the Republic just like French.
Because, beyond the text itself, there is a dynamic of interpretations and jurisprudence that can go very far. I am convinced that in France, the land of freedom, no minority is discriminated against and consequently it is not necessary to grant European judges the right to give their opinion on a matter that is consubstantial with our national identity and has absolutely nothing to do with the construction of EuropeEuropean UnionThe European Union is an economic and political union of 27 independent member states which are located primarily in Europe. The EU traces its origins from the European Coal and Steel Community and the European Economic Community , formed by six countries in 1958...
.
His Socialist
Socialist Party (France)
The Socialist Party is a social-democratic political party in France and the largest party of the French centre-left. It is one of the two major contemporary political parties in France, along with the center-right Union for a Popular Movement...
rival, Ségolène Royal
Ségolène Royal
Marie-Ségolène Royal , known as Ségolène Royal, is a French politician. She is the president of the Poitou-Charentes Regional Council, a former member of the National Assembly, a former government minister, and a prominent member of the French Socialist Party...
, on the contrary, declared herself ready to sign the Charter in a March 2007 speech in Iparralde
Northern Basque Country
The French Basque Country or Northern Basque Country situated within the western part of the French department of the Pyrénées-Atlantiques constitutes the north-eastern part of the Basque Country....
for the sake of cultural variety in France:
Regional identities represent a tremendous asset for the future and I believe that understanding the link between the fundamental values that make the deep-rooted identity between France and the French nation in its diversity, in its authenticity, in its authentic traditions [...] makes the State work well.
French language policy
- Language policy in FranceLanguage policy in FranceFrance has one official language, the French language. The French government does not regulate the choice of language in publications by individuals but the use of French is required by law in commercial and workplace communications...
- Languages of France
- Jules FerryJules FerryJules François Camille Ferry was a French statesman and republican. He was a promoter of laicism and colonial expansion.- Early life :Born in Saint-Dié, in the Vosges département, France, he studied law, and was called to the bar at Paris in 1854, but soon went into politics, contributing to...
Similar policies in other countries
- Welsh NotWelsh NotThe Welsh Not or Welsh Note was a punishment system used in some Welsh schools in the late 19th and early 20th century to dissuade children from speaking Welsh...
, English suppression of the Welsh languageWelsh languageWelsh is a member of the Brythonic branch of the Celtic languages spoken natively in Wales, by some along the Welsh border in England, and in Y Wladfa...
. 方言札 (dialect card), suppression of Ryukyuan languagesRyukyuan languagesThe Ryukyuan languages are spoken in the Ryukyu Islands, and make up a subgroup of the Japonic, itself controversially a subgroup of Altaic....
and dialects of the Tōhoku regionTohoku regionThe is a geographical area of Japan. The region occupies the northeastern portion of Honshu, the largest island of Japan. The region consists of six prefectures : Akita, Aomori, Fukushima, Iwate, Miyagi and Yamagata....
in Japan.
External links
- Abbé Grégoire's Report on the necessity and means to annihilate the patois and to universalise the use of the French language
- Bernard Poignant's report
- French Constitution
- European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages
- Youth of European Nationalities website
- Aprene, Establiment d'Ensenhament Superior Occitan