"Yes" to a "Pays Catalan" department

The Occitan Nation Party says "Yes"

to a "Pays Catalan" department

Hermeline Malherbe, President of the Conseil Départemental of the Pyrénées Orientales, has announced a move to change the department's name.

Between now and the end of the year, several names will be put to the vote of residents, who will then be able to submit a request to the French government corresponding to the choice they have expressed.

The Occitan Nation Party congratulates Madame Malherbe both for this step, which responds to the growing affirmation by the population of its Catalan identity, and opens up new prospects for the institutional future of the territory, and for its democratic nature.

In the Jacobin republic, such a rare change of name for a territorial authority requires a decree from the central government. The names of the departments were determined by the Jacobin Republic at the end of the 18th century, in particular to erase any cultural and linguistic identity.

In the space of two centuries, only six departments were allowed to change their names, in order to drop a qualifier deemed prejudicial, such as "lower".

The departments of "Lower Pyrenees" and "North Coasts" were renamed "Pyrénées Atlantiques" in 1969, and "Côtes d'Armor" in 1990, changes they had both requested in 1962 - probably the twenty-eight year wait for the latter testifies to the reluctance of central government to use a Breton term in the name of a "French" department.

A similar censure was feared for the choice of "Occitanie" for the region.

According to an online consultation of its listeners by "France Bleue Roussillon", by far the favourite name would be "Pays Catalan" with 56% of choices, well ahead of keeping the current name (18%), "Pyrénées Catalanes" (17%), "Pyrénées-Méditerranée" (6%) and "Pays Catalan Fenouillèdes" (1%).

This confirms the attachment of the population of the department, expressed several times since 2015, to its Catalan identity.

The Occitan Nation Party recalls that it had condemned the arbitrary mergers of regions decided by François Hollande, demanding full regional status for Northern Catalonia in particular; when the population of the region was consulted on the choice of its name, the Occitan Nation Party took a position in favour of the "Occitanie" and "Occitanie - Pays Catalan" options; the latter option, undoubtedly more satisfactory for Catalan opinion, was not followed by the overwhelmingly Occitan population of the region's twelve other departments.

The demand for a fully-fledged Catalan region must be given fresh impetus by greater recognition of the department's Catalan identity, in a context where demands for regional autonomy are growing.

Historical Occitan-Catalan friendship and cooperation have everything to gain from mutual recognition of their otherness.

With this in mind, the Occitan Nation Party invites the Occitans of Fenouillèdes, who are very much in a minority in the department, to support the affirmation of Catalan identity through the proposed change of name and to call for Fenouillèdes to be incorporated into the neighbouring department of Aude.

The Occitan Nation Party salutes the exemplary attitude of the Catalan independence fighters in the Generalitat de Catalunya towards the Occitan (Aranese) minority in its territory: recognition and co-officiality of the Occitan language, protection of Occitan culture in institutions, the public arena and education.

It invites the institutions of the Catalan department and the militants of its Catalan identity to draw inspiration from it in recognising the Occitan identity of Fenouillèdes and supporting the demands for the redrawing of the departments and more generally of the regions according to cultural and linguistic identities.

"Yes" to a "Pays Catalan" department