France is to take the town council of Elna (or Elne in French) to court, for promoting the use of Catalan in municipal meetings. The hearing will take place on April 18th at the Administrative Court of Montpellier and, according to Elna mayor Nicolas Garcia, will serve to ascertain "whether French justice accepts historical and future linguistic and cultural diversity." The mayor of the town in Northern Catalonia, administratively French but historically Catalan, has clarified that it is not him or the town councilors that are being put on trial, but the decision taken by the council. "What will be judged and perhaps suspended are the rules of the plenary session and our decision. We personally are not threatened with prison or fines, as our colleagues in the south have been," he specified, referring to the justice system that applies on the southern side of the Pyrenean border.
A few months after becoming the first municipality in Northern Catalonia to recognize the right to speak in Catalan at municipal meetings, Elna found itself facing a complaint from the French state. Despite the fact that France has created mechanisms such as the public office for the Catalan language, to theoretically encourage its use, on this occasion it chose to denounce the municipal action. The justification contained in the summons stated that "any element liable to damage the fundamental principles of the Republic and the hierarchy between the official language and regional languages" is considered as a "claim for cultural identity" that conflicts with the postulates of the deliberative assemblies of communities.
On April 21st, 2022, Elna became the first municipality in Northern Catalonia to recognize the use of Catalan in plenary sessions. The council itself highlighted the fact of being pioneers in this measure when it was approved: "The first municipality in the Pyrénées-Orientales to do so officially", they indicated. The proposal was not well received by all the municipal parties, because with councillors voting against it. In site of the opposition, the city recognized this linguistic right within the council.
The status of Catalan in the council had been an issue for months. The last straw for those who asserted linguistic rights with regard to the town's own language came when the deputy mayor, Pere Manzanares, made a speech in Catalan that caused opposition councillors to leave the plenary session. At this point the municipal government decided to regulate the matter. They consulted with lawyers on whether new regulation was viable and received an affirmative answer: "Since we are stubbornly Catalan, we asked about this matter and demanded help and they told us that we were being deceived, that we had the right to do this", he explained Garcia at the time. Now, however, this right is being challenged in court.