Gallic rooster

The Gallic rooster (French: le coq gaulois) is an unofficial national symbol of France as a nation, as opposed to Marianne representing France as a State, and its values: the Republic. The rooster is also the symbol of the Wallonia region and the French Community of Belgium.

During the times of Ancient Rome, Suetonius, in The Twelve Caesars, noticed that, in Latin, rooster (gallus) and Gauls (Gallus) were homonyms. However the association of the Gallic rooster as a national symbol is apocryphal, as the rooster was neither regarded as a national personification nor as a sacred animal by the Gauls in their mythology and because there was no "Gallic nation" at the time, but a loose confederation of Gallic nations instead. But a closer review within that religious scheme indicates that "Mercury" was often portrayed with the cock, a sacred animal among the Continental Celts.Julius Caesar in De Bello Gallico identified some gods worshipped in Gaul by using the names of their nearest Roman god rather than their Gaulish name, with Caesar saying "Mercury" was the god most revered in Gaul. The Irish god Lug identified as samildánach led to the widespread identification of Caesar's Mercury as Lugus and thus also to the sacred cock, the Gallic rooster, as an emblem of France.

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