Occitan nationalism

Occitan nationalism is a social and political movement in Occitania. Nationalists seek self-determination, greater autonomy or the creation of a sovereign state of Occitania. The basis of nationalism is linguistic and cultural although currently the Occitan language is a minority status within the language area.

The territories claimed under the Occitan nation represent a large part of southern France, Monaco, part of Spain (Val d'Aran) and Italy (Occitan Valleys, Guardia Piemontese).

Occitan nationalism re-appears as a reaction of injustice in the regions of southern France in the face of the economic and energy restructuring undertaken by the Gaullists ruling in the 1960s, which gave priority to the regions most prosperous of the northern country. In 1962, the French government decided in a completely arbitrary way the closure of the mining and industrial complex of La Sala, fact which will then be regarded as the catalyst of the modern Occitan claims.

Then, from 1968, Occitan cultural renaissance combined with economic protest led to a nationalist claim that Occitania was an inner colony of the centralist French state. Although there was a Occitan nationalist current, the unionism with the leftist French won. This is why Lucha Occitana defines Occitania as a popular nationality, that is to say as a nation in the making. Lucha Occitana objected, ideologically speaking, to the nationalism of the Partit de la Nacion Occitana: the Occitan nation being a starting point for the Partit de la Nacion Occitana, then it was a point of arrival for Lucha Occitana.

From the 1973 oil crisis, the evolution of the international economic situation will change the game for several decades. The economic crisis that followed the end of Trente Glorieuses will affect all France. In the same way as the other nationalist movements of the rest of the France and Europe, the core of the claims focused on cultural identity and right of minorities.

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