Occitan nationalism

Occitan nationalism is a social & political movement in Occitania. Nationalists seek self-determination, greater autonomy or the instituting of the sovereign state of Occitania. The basis of nationalism is linguistic as well as cultural although currently the Occitan varieties are minority languages within the language area.

The territories claimed under the Occitan nation symbolize a large component of southern France, Val d'Aran and Italy Occitan Valleys, Guardia Piemontese.

Occitan nationalism in recent years

Occitan nationalism re-appears as a reaction of injustice in the regions of southern France in the face of the economic and power to direct or introducing restructuring undertaken by the Gaullists ruling in the 1960s, which submission priority to the regions almost prosperous of the northern country. In 1962, the French government decided in a completely arbitrary way tothe mining and industrial complex of La Sala, fact which then became regarded as the catalyst of the advanced Occitan claims.

Then, from 1968, Occitan cultural rebirth combined with economic protest led to a nationalist claim that Occitania was an inner colony of the centralist French state. Although there was an 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 member for the Partit de la Nacion Occitana, then it was a ingredient of arrival for Lucha Occitana.

From the 1973 oil crisis, the evolution of the international economic situation will conform the game for several decades. The economic crisis that followed the end of Trente Glorieuses will impact 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 adjustment of minorities.

The Occitan nationalism of the 1980s lost its influence on society mainly because of the fragmentation of parties and organizations between different ideologies, as well as the inability to articulate a romantic nationalism covering such a large territory with a heterogeneous social reality.

In the 1990s, the political movement could be forwarded as marginal within Occitanism.

Recently Occitan nationalism is renewed, we can mention:

Moreover, the linguistic aspect is one of the most important claims of Occitan nationalism, as alive as "Occitan regionalism" and various civic movements in Occitania. In this area, numerous political advances on the recognition of Occitan language work recently resulted. We can cite: