Defeat of Catalanism in the referendum in Northern Catalonia

BarcelonaCatalanist defeat in Northern Catalonia. Catalanism had gambled everything on a referendum that was a double-edged sword and also served to measure its political impact. The playing field was the naming of the department – equivalent to a province – in an attempt to abandon the Jacobin name of Pyrénées-Orientales from the French Revolution and reclaim the stolen Catalan identity, at least in the nomenclature, through the path of Pyrénées Catalanes. What is the degree of connection with Catalan identity of a population where 35% say they can speak Catalan, but as a habitual language it drops to 5%? Well, it's relative, and it lost by 2,000 votes compared to the Pyrénées-Orientales option, which will remain the official name. With 18,025 votes, the Jacobin option won (47.21% of the votes), above the 16,092 for the Catalanist option (42.15%) and the 4,061 for the third way of Pyrénées Méditerranée (10.64%), according to departmental data.

The vote took place from June 22nd until August 15th, but with a count that closed this Friday. And even so, there has been a considerable delay in the scrutiny, which was initially expected to finish around 6 p.m., but was delayed until after 9 p.m., partly due to the arduous task of verifying the vote. With 40,656 votes out of a total of 384,600 electors, meaning an 11% turnout, a low citizen involvement has been evident, but higher compared to consultations on territorial name changes in other regions of France. The result has been clear, and Catalanism has neither mobilized enough nor managed to minimally recognize its own Northern Catalan identity.

The result of this citizen consultation is significant for political Catalanism in the territory, articulated in parties like Unitat Catalana – an ally of Junts – and which has a provincial deputy [on the departmental council], Jaume Pol, although it is also involved in state parties, such as the centrist Annabelle Brunet or the vice-president of the department Nicolas Garcia, former mayor of Elna and known for his commitment to the Procés and his friendship with former president Carles Puigdemont. At the same time, the departmental majority, with an amalgamation of left-wing parties and Catalanists, also suffers a defeat. On the other hand, the Catalanist party Sí al País Català had criticized the consultation from the outset for not including the "most popular" name, referring to the name they use as a party, and its leaders did not participate.

In any case, the mayor of Perpignan has also gambled, and remains untouchable. The far-right politician Louis Aliot has defended the term Eastern Pyrenees, which ties in with his anti-Catalanism. The victory of Marine Le Pen's National Rally in Northern Catalonia in the last legislative elections, in addition to the triumph in the municipal elections in the capital and in cities such as Elna or Canet de Rosselló, represented a paradigm shift for a territory fully dominated by the radical right. Therefore, the referendum was also important to measure whether, in the field of recognizing Catalan identity, the ultra narrative was faltering, which has not happened.

Including Catalanity in the name has been an incipient demand from a movement that would dream of a kind of political autonomy in the Corsican style, but which was in an initial stage that has not materialized.

Background

The naming muddle worsened with the macro-region reform in effect since 2016, when Languedoc-Roussillon disappeared to be included in the Occitanie Region, a territory that does not incorporate Catalan identity in its name, even though the North Catalans largely voted for the Occitanie-Pays Catalan option at the time, but it failed due to such a large voter pool. The counties of Roussillon and Cerdanya, snatched from Catalonia in 1659 and incorporated into France following the Catalan defeat in the Reapers' War and the consequent Treaty of the Pyrenees, still maintain the vitality of Catalan identity despite their capital ceasing to be "the Catalan one" officially to become "the radiant one" because of Aliot. Aliot, moreover, has promoted the defense of a "Roussillonnaise" identity, not Catalan as the town had historically defended, and from a folkloric point of view.

After the result, there will be no change in the name, and North Catalonia assumes that the vitality of the Catalan sentiment is rather superficial – linked to sports, like rugby with USAP or the Dracs Catalans – and not enough to modify the historical republican designation of Pyrénées Orientales. In North Catalonia, there was a linguistic substitution throughout the last century, so that the usual use of the language is testimonial and is barely recorded among young people. In terms of abilities, 61% understand the language and 35% say they can speak it, according to the last survey of language use, which is from 2015. Furthermore, demographically, half of the population is originally from outside North Catalonia.