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 he
annexation by the Kingdom of France in 1659 awakened a Catalan
resistance which was often in opposition to the tax system.
Versailles was obliged to buy salt from Narbonne at a higher
price than the salt from South Catalonia until this period passed.
Another resistance movement was led by Josep of the Trinxeria
in the Vallespir region. The religious resistance, opposing
the methods of the French administration was born in Perpignan
by Sister Ana Maria Antigo. However, these oppositions, expressed
equally by the rural world and the nobility, weakened in the
following century. The official life was overturned: the Catalan
institutions (Corts, Audiencia) were suppressed and replaced
by a Conseil Souverain du Roussillon. Then in the 1670s some
schools began teaching French and attracted the elites. The
Catalan language was excluded from legal documents but the region
remained Catalan: the working classes, the merchants and the
artisans worked on the two sides of the Pyrénées
despite the divide. Gradually however, customs were lost and
smugglers prospered, it was the beginning of a sense of ‘foreignness’
with regards to the neighbours on the other side.
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The
center of Perpinyà,
21st century |
Until
1785 the region was a "province of foreign reputation"
and was also semi-autonomous. Then, following the French Revolution,
it was considered in the sentiments of the Catalan people a
region free of boundaries. In direct contrast, the central government
of France reinforced the southern border and created the Departement
des Pyrénées-Orientales in 1790. Passing through
French public schools in the 19th Century the residents turned
their backs on the south and looked to Paris. However, all still
spoke Catalan, the majority language until the 1960s. On a territorial
map North Catalonia comprises the region of Languedoc-Roussillon
since 1972. Its population has risen from 230 000 to 400 000
residents between 1954 and 2004. Today the erasing of frontiers
and the quest for identity is a revelation for the inhabitants
who are now becoming familiar with the territory of South Catalonia.
Like the Treaty of the Pyrénées in 1659, in the
21st Century North Catalonia knows that the solution to the
identity crisis lies in rediscovering itself today.
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