The radio station where all the interviewees always speak in Catalan is in danger.

Barcelona"The situation for Catalan in Northern Catalonia is terrible, and it's getting worse," says Pere Manzanares, a teacher and long-time language activist. The latest figures indicate that only 5% of a population of 500,000 speak Catalan regularly, although 20% of citizens say they know it. As if using Catalan weren't complicated enough in this context, two other threats are now being added to the mix, putting Ràdio Arrels, the Catalan-language radio station in Northern Catalonia, on the ropes: the cultural cuts that the French government has already hinted at to alleviate the public deficit, and the rise of the far right.

"The future of Ràdio Arrels is in danger. When the fire of the far right reaches the French state, it cannot find us on our knees, but must find us upright and strong," says Albert Noguer, the station's director. For this reason, the entity has decided to "look south" and has started a campaign to ask for greater involvement from the Catalan administrations and the support of citizens in the form of monthly donations to guarantee the station's operation. "We feel compelled to give Catalonia a wake-up call. We must break the condescension with which Northern Catalonia is viewed and for Ràdio Arrels to be considered a national cultural asset," said Manzanares, founder of the association, this Thursday at an event at the Ateneu Barcelonès.

Ràdio Arrels is the only local station in Northern Catalonia, and it is the only radio station that maintains a radical commitment to Catalan: absolutely all of its segments and all of its interviews are in Catalan, as are all of its advertising. "100% Catalan-speaking radio" is its motto. "If we didn't do it this way, everyone would end up speaking French," they say. Ràdio Arrels was founded in 1981, even before TV3 and Catalunya Ràdio, to strengthen the Catalan language and unite the Catalan-speaking community.

This radicalism makes the work of the station's journalists difficult on a daily basis: "We have to find interviewees who know Catalan and convince them they can speak it, because there's a deep diglossia and a lot of shame about speaking it poorly. Sometimes it's because they have a Catalan with a Roussillon accent," says Miquel Martínez Vila. It also makes financing difficult for the station, which by law can only have 20% advertising, as it is an association. Its annual budget amounts to 170,000 euros. The French state subsidy is 70,000 euros, and the departmental and regional councils contribute 60,000 euros, "but they depend on political developments, and it's plausible that the far right will win," they warn, given that it already governs the capital, Perpignan. The Generalitat (Catalan government) contributes between 20,000 and 30,000 euros for specific projects, a figure they find paltry. With the grassroots campaign, they hope to increase their budget by 100,000 euros annually for ordinary operations. The radio station has already gone from seven full-time employees to two full-time employees and another two part-time employees.

Ràdio Arrels, based in Soler, near Perpignan, reaches all the regions of Northern Catalonia (from Roussillon to Cerdanya-Capcir, passing through Conflent and Vallespir) and aims to improve local information about Prada and Ceret. "We're also listened to by a French-speaking audience, because we're truly local and not a branch office, and because our musical and cultural offerings are top-notch," says Noguer. They've already begun rolling out a new podcast-based offering, specifically designed for Northern Catalan children. Today, 5% of young people study Catalan, and he asserts that the language's prestige is growing, although recovering it on the street is much more difficult. This is a task that Radio Arrels claims to be. "We've won the battle for identity, but not for language," says Manzanares.