By Alessandro Colletti
Internationally, France appears as a cohesive nation with a homogeneous identity and a single language; however, this is a projection of years of centralisation and cultural repression rather than historical reality.
Ever since the French revolution, the Paris government has made it its commitment to eradicate regional cultures and languages, branding the latter improper deviations from the purity of the Parisian language and signs of uncivilization that needs correcting.
The motivations behind this longstanding campaign are false and unethical, and conceal the intent of creating a single national identity to preserve sovereignty through social integrity.
An example of this is the Occitan Language, which was once spoken in the whole southern half of France. Occitan was once a language of incredibly prolific literary tradition, finding its prestige in the Middle Ages through the works of the “trobadors”, poets who innovated European poetry through songs.
As recently as 1860, native Occitan speakers represented 40% of the entire French population, long after Parisian was declared the sole language for all French administration.1
Indeed, French curiously stands out among the romance languages of the Mediterranean, such as Italian, Catalan and Spanish.
After 1789, revolutionaries saw regional languages as a threat to integrity through political fragmentation, and implemented policies to eradicate them.
The most notable of these were the Jules Ferry Laws of 1882: through mandatory education, the laws made French the sole language tolerated in school, and any student using regional languages would be punished physically and psychologically.2
Namely, teachers would hit students with a stick, or clog them around the neck with a heavy, discomforting object known as “Le symbole” or called “La vache” by the students.3
Unsurprisingly, this practice came to be known as “Vergonha” (“shame”), and instilled in cultural minorities the notion that regional languages were a disadvantageous habit that prevented them from becoming proper French citizens and succeed among society.
This led parents not to pass on regional languages to children, fearing discrimination or physical punishments.
Unfortunately, the effectiveness of the Ferry Laws led to the almost complete disappearance of several regional languages, such as Norman, Gallo and Picard.
Even Occitan, which 50 years after Napoleon’s death was still the native language of almost half of the French population, shrunk to less than a third in 1921.4
State media through radio and television worsened the situation in the years to come, and nowadays even the enormous Occitan is only spoken by a few hundred thousand people, mostly elders and as a second language after French.5
The French state still thoroughly refuses to recognise regional languages to this day.
In 1972, President Pompidou declared there was no place for regional languages in a France bound to define Europe; this is a clear continuation of government policy aimed at eradicating multiculturalism in France, reducing French identity as speakers of the Parisian language.6
Under President Chirac, France signed the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages, but unlike other nations such as Spain or the UK it refused to ratify it.
Regarding this, President Sarkozy proclaimed in a speech in 2007, “I don’t want that tomorrow a judge… decides that a regional language must be considered as a language of the Republic just like French”, cynically adding that “in France, the land of the free, no minority is discriminated against”.7
This continual hostility against regional languages erases multiculturalism in France, and reinforces the political narrative of French identity being monolithic and unified.
Nowadays, the situation remains dire: the 2021 Molac Law, attempting to revive regional languages through school education, was blocked and deemed unconstitutional.
In 2024, the Marseille Municipal Court vetoed attempts at using Corsican by the local government of Corsica citing unconstitutional motives.8
This shows that even in the present day, when regional authorities desire to embrace native multilingualism, political centralisation will intervene in order to amber French identity as uniform and French-speaking only, thus licensing cultural and linguistic genocide.
References
1 Louis de Baecker “Grammaire comparèe des langues de la France”, Bleriot, 1860, p.52-54
2 “Vergonha!”, Monoccitania, 50Webs Web Hosting
3 Michel Feltin-Palas “Un symbole très… sybolique”, in “L’Express”, Sept.2018
4 Joseph Anglade, “Grammaire de l’ancien provençal ou ancienne langue d’oc”, C. Klincksieck, 1921, p.5
5 Thomas T. Field, “The Sociolinguistic Situation of Modern Occitan”, The French Review, Vol.54, n1, Oct-1980, p.41
6 Astrid von Busekist “Passion de la langue et reconnaissance”, in Raisons Politiques, n.56, 2014, p.61
7 “Vergonha!”, Monoccitania
8 “French court cracks down on Corsican language use in local assembly”, France24, 26.11.2024
Bibliography
24, France. “French Court Cracks down on Corsican Language Use in Local Assembly.” France 24, FRANCE 24, 26 Nov. 2024, http://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20241126-french-court-cracks-down-on-corsican-language-use-in-local-assembly.
Anglade, Joseph. Grammaire de L’ancien Provençal Ou Ancienne Langue D’oc. C. Klincksieck, 1921.
Astrid von Busekist. “Passion de La Langue et Reconnaissance.” Raisons Politiques, vol. N° 56, no. 4, 17 Dec. 2014, pp. 49–68, https://doi.org/10.3917/rai.056.0049.
Baecker, Louis de. Grammaire Comparée Des Langues de La France. Bleriot, 1860.
Feltin-Palas, Michel. “Un Symbole Très… Symbolique.” L’Express, 14 Sept. 2018, http://www.lexpress.fr/societe/region/un-symbole-tres-symbolique_2035203.html.
Field, Thomas T. “The Sociolinguistic Situation of Modern Occitan.” French Review, vol. 54, no. 1, 1 Oct. 1980, pp. 37–46.
“Vergonha.” 50webs.com, 2025, monoccitania.50webs.com/vergonha.html.
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