Radio Raíces: the modest (and important) structure of the country

El Soler (Roussillon)In the winter of 1980-1981, a group of founding parents from La Bressola split off to create a school that would teach in Catalan and French from kindergarten to age 6. While we were preparing to open an Arrels school in Perpignan, the opportunity to create this radio station arose. Nothing was planned, and we launched into the adventure of creating this radio station before the school opened. We were preparing for the arrival of a child and found ourselves in the arms of a collaborator of La Bressola for four years. The opportunity Manzanares mentions came through a state law of May 1981 that allowed the creation of associative radio stations in France. They founded Radio Arrels, which began broadcasting on the 28th of that same month of May.

"In the early 1980s, everyone wanted to express themselves freely. Association radio stations sprouted like mushrooms; it was a euphoric moment that oozed freedom. The French radio monopoly of the previous regime was broken; everyone wanted to express themselves, and it was a way, because with few resources you could make a small radio station, because with few resources you could make a small radio station, because with few resources you could make a small radio station, because with few resources you could make a small radio station, because with few resources you could make a small radio station, because with few resources you could make a small radio station, because you could already become radio enthusiasts," Manzanares adds. "There were many local groups in Perpignan and the surrounding area. At their peak, there were 20 or 25 broadcasting at the same time."

To fully understand this, you have to keep in mind that the French radio scene is different from that in the Principality. There are no local radio stations created wholly or partially by city councils; the local radio stations you can listen to are association radio stations. Then there are commercial and state-run radio stations, which doesn't mean they can't have some small territorial disconnect. Association radio stations depend on state, regional, and departmental subsidies—some city councils also help them, but it's only a few hundred euros a year—and at most they can get 20% of their budget from advertising, but in most cases—and this is also the case with Radio Arrels—they've never sought it.

After 44 years, Ràdio Arrels is the oldest station in Northern Catalonia. "We've been around since the spring of 1981, and we're the only one left in Northern Catalonia. Many have disappeared, perhaps 90%. And of those that remained, some have been integrated into networks, and others have been bought out by commercial radio stations, and the name has disappeared. And the original spirit, of course, has disappeared as well," explains Manzanares. In the rest of France, non-French, associative radio stations that serve a territory's native language, like Radio Arrels, are the exception. "There's one in the Basque Country, perhaps another in Corsica, and that's it. All the others have a more or less significant portion of their own, minority language, and incorporate French," Manzanares adds. There are currently more than seven hundred associative radio stations in France.

The peculiarity: everyone who speaks must do so in Catalan.

Ràdio Arrels was founded with one goal: to recover and normalize the Catalan language, as much as possible in France. The statutes stipulate that everyone who speaks Catalan must do so in Catalan. "This represents an effort for them. That's why it's very important to support them so they can continue doing so. It's the only media outlet entirely in Catalan, independent in the sense that it doesn't rely on any advertising, and it's extremely important for a region like Northern Catalonia to have a media outlet that is the voice of Northern Catalonia," says Joana Serra, daughter of the founders of Ràdio Arrel. The Book of the Week. Serra has run the Catalan Bookstore in Perpignan since 2012."We make very few exceptions for French interviews, perhaps ten or twelve a year. Only when a scientist, politician, artist, or athlete who isn't from here comes to Northern Catalonia and we consider what they say to be of interest to our audience. And, obviously, if they speak French, we don't translate it. That would be absurd."

Laura Bertran, current correspondent in Catalunya Nord for TV3 and Catalunya Ràdio, began his career in journalism with a temporary job at Ràdio Arrels and spent twenty years there until fifteen months ago when he joined the Catalan Audiovisual Media Corporation. "It started as a summer job, and we liked each other," Bertran says with a smile.

A few years ago he did A question in Catalan to Manuel Valls when he was Minister of the Interior. Bertran had previously interviewed him in the studio in Catalan when he was just beginning his political career. At that time, Valls, now a minister, responded to the journalist with a question: "Should a minister of the Republic speak in Catalan?" The Socialist politician Christian Bourquin, then president of the Languedoc-Roussillon Regional Council, who was standing behind Valls, said, "Here yes," and Valls gave a brief response in Catalan, an anecdote that was recorded in a video by the weekly magazine The Week of Roussillon, which went viral. Bourquin was a Roussillon native, born in Sant Feliu d'Amunt, and was a recalcitrant Jacobin who was also respectful of his northern Catalan identity. Although he almost always spoke French, he understood and spoke Catalan a little, and liked to include a few Catalan phrases in his speeches. He said he was "French above all else, and Catalan before everything." In fact, the name of the council's news magazine when he was president wasThe Catalan accent of the Republic ("The Catalan accent of the Republic") and named his son Jordi. Bourquin died in 2014 at the age of 59 from an illness.

"I've interviewed many French ministers and prime ministers in Catalan, and they answered in French without any problem. Of course, many times, behind closed doors, I had to first translate the questions into French. Jean-Pierre Chevènement, who was Minister of the Interior and a very Jacobin; Michel Rocard, who was Prime Minister; Jacques Lang, a minister who was never bothered. The last person I interviewed, who initially objected, was Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who had been a minister and head of the list for France Insubmissa. He's a very Jacobin.

The loss of the territory's own language

"Catalan is disappearing, it is very difficult to hear it on the street.In Perpignan, it's almost impossible except in the Sant Jaume neighborhood, where you hear Roma speaking Catalan, or in a few specific places, like the Llibreria Catalana. But in the rest of the city, it's very difficult to speak Catalan on the street. And in the villages, it's also increasingly difficult," says Albert Noguer, director of Radio Arrels, where he has done all the Auca paperwork since 1982, when he began volunteering. "One tool for maintaining this social use is the radio because it gets into cars, homes, phones... It's not a way of...

"One of the things that has always impressed me about Ràdio Arrels is its ability to find people who talk to them about certain topics and you think: "I know this voice", and it's a voice that you know more or less but I had no idea that this person could express themselves so well in Catalan," he points out. Gautier Sabrià, sociologist and contributor to Ràdio Arrels for eleven years"Radio Arrels has made thousands of people take the step to speak Catalan for the first time publicly. Especially at the beginning, because people knew how to speak Catalan but probably didn't speak it very often. And having a journalist come and ask them to speak in Catalan made many people dare to speak Catalan in public: politicians, social workers and many people in radio," says Berenguer Ballester, who worked at Ràdio Arrels from 1982 until his retirement, where he made programs such as Writer of the Month either The Album of the Week, among others.

"There are a variety of programs that explain life in the department and what people do. Many northern Catalans who have lost their language listen to it to hear Catalan spoken. There are people who have told me, 'Hey! It's going well for me because my grandfather spoke it and then he stopped, my mother too, I had an aunt who had an aunt.' Many people say: 'You are Catalan and the Catalan language is part of your life,' and it is that sentiment that I have heard through what these people told me, about why they listen to Ràdio Arrels," explains Martí Vilà Passola, Councilor for Culture and Catalanity of the City Council of Ceret, born in Barcelona, ​​​​resident in the French state for a few years.

A veteran northern Catalan journalist who prefers not to give his name also highlights the role that Ràdio Arrels has always played in training self-taught journalists, both in the 1980s and in the 21st century~.

The musical selection

To think that Ràdio Arrels is only listened to by the Northern Catalan population who are committed to the cause or who feel challenged in one way or another by Catalan identity is a mistake. Radio Arrels focuses on the Northern Catalan population, regardless of whether they speak Catalan or even understand it. "We don't have audience studies because when they conduct surveys, the agencies only ask about commercial and public radio stations. To request our inclusion, they would perhaps ask us for 15,000 euros," explains the station's director, Albert Noguer. "It certainly has an impact. It plays an important role because it provides access to the Catalan language, and unfortunately, there are few free open public spaces where the Catalan language is discussed in a normal and uninhibited manner," says Bertran.

"It's hard to say without objective data, but my experience is that whenever I've done things on the radio, at work, acquaintances and people not necessarily linked to the Catalanist environment, or anything at all, have told me: "I've heard you on the radio." Value: that there are people who get in their car and automatically put on Radio Arrels. There are those who say it's because of the music, that it's a radio program with a lot of music in Catalan, but not only that, you have music in other languages, but of quality," explains Pablo Bonat, a teacher born in Barcelona, ​​​​resident in Northern Catalonia for twelve years and a collaborator. His partner is the daughter of founders of Radio Arrels.

The musical selection has been carefully curated from day one. "The people who started Radio Arrels weren't very young. They already had a moderately strong cultural background in both Catalan and French, and also a habit of listening to quality music and singer-songwriters, which they wanted to bring to the radio schedule. In the first few weeks, we programmed mostly music in Catalan because we also wanted to incorporate current music but of a certain quality, not commercial songs that had a shelf life of just a couple of months," explains Manzanares, founder of the association and the radio station. "We programme a little over half of the music in Catalan, but we don't restrict ourselves to any language," adds Noguer.

An unexpected discovery

Ingrid Obiol is from Barcelona and has been living in Northern Catalonia for eighteen years. "I had no idea there was a Catalan radio station; I'd never heard of it. It was quite a discovery, a surprise I couldn't quite believe. When you arrive in France, you get these big labels: it's very Jacobin, which it is, eh, and that the French language is essential for surviving in France. And I'm amazed. Not even in my wildest dreams did I expect such a lovely surprise." Obiol has been a teacher at several schools in La Bressola; her children are students, and she now works at the Association for the Teaching of Catalan (APLEC) at the University of Perpignan-Via Domitia. "My perception was that Ràdio Arrels reported more than the other stations broadcasting from Perpignan or other media outlets that covered Northern Catalonia, which were more generalist. Radio Arrels was ultra-local, it gave news from villages I didn't even know, because I had just arrived, and it allowed me to have it, and it allowed me to have it."

Obiol also joins in the praise for the musical selection. "I've discovered little gems that you can only hear on Ràdio Arrels. I often tune in when I'm driving, not so much now because they don't broadcast news, but I put it on because I think maybe I'll discover a new band or a new song. It takes me back to a time when we didn't have the technologies we have now, when we can know the title of a song or who owns the songs. You know the name of the band, and it hooks you into listening to the station again to see if they'll play it again. Obiol is also a translator from French to Catalan, and a few years ago, Ràdio Arrels made a summer soap opera based on a novel she had translated.

"In Northern Catalonia, the battles to maintain our identity are ongoing; they're not acquired, not by a long shot," says Joana Serra. However, there are also those who see it a little more positively. "An associative radio station in the Northern Catalan context that has lasted four decades means something, doesn't it?" concludes Pablo Bonat.