Read in Catalan

Several leading figures from northern Catalonia - part of the French Republic - and also from the south, part of the Spanish state, took part in a protest this Wednesday in front of the French government's prefecture in Perpinyà against the Montpellier court's decision to ban the use of the Catalan language at municipal council meetings. The demonstration was attended by the northern Catalan leaders who have promoted the use of the language, such as Elna mayor's Nicolas Garcia, and councillors such as Pere Manzanares, as well as the exiled Catalan culture minister Lluís Puig and the former speaker of the Parliament of Catalonia, Carmen Forcadell. The protest also had the support of the pro-independence Catalan bodies Council of the Republic and Òmnium Cultural. The protesters carried a banner with a slogan that read Fem viure el català - "Let's make Catalan live".

Tweet translation:
"Right now, a rally in Perpinyà in front of the Prefecture to denounce the decision of the administrative court of Montpellier to prohibit the use of Catalan in the municipal meetings of Northern Catalonia."- Josep Bonet.

Those who gathered outside the French adminstrative building demanded the right to use Catalan "normally" throughout Northern Catalonia, from Rosselló to Alta Cerdanya. The councils that had begun to recover Catalan in their municipal meetings are those of Elna, Els Banys, Sant Andreu de Sureda, Tarerac and Portvendres. However, last September, Rodrigue Furcy, newly elected prefect of the Pyrénees-Orientales department, took the town councils to court over their decisions to change their meeting regulations, allowing Catalan to be spoken with statements also then being translated into French. This Tuesday, the court in Montpellier issued its ruling in the case, banning the use of Catalan in these municipal meetings. "The primacy of the French language is called into question," said the ruling. 

But in the eyes of the northern Catalan leaders, the matter is far from resolved. The mayor of Els Banys, Maria Costa, has made several statements asserting that she will continue to speak in Catalan at plenary sessions, declarations which have been widely celebrated on socal media. "I personally, and I suppose it will also be the case for everyone, continue [speaking in Catalan]. We will not make fools of ourselves changing our language to obey the French or anything like that. No way!" she affirmed.

Tweet translation: 
"Hell, that is determination! ▶️"We will not make fools of ourselves changing our language" ▶️"They won't send a gendarme every time"— toni

Not all municipalities will necessarily follow the same strategy. Portvendres municipal council will modify its council regulations, and will first hold meetings in French and then in Catalan. All of this is in line with the advice given by the lawyer handling the case, Mateu Pons, who asserts that despite the court decision, the sentence "implicitly" opens the door to speaking first in French and then translating to Catalan. On the other hand, the other three councils won't do it that way: they demand to be able to express themselves in Catalan first.

Now, as Elna councillor Pere Manzanares said in the tweeted video, the northern Catalan mayors will go to the next stage in the appeal process: the Court of Toulouse in Languedoc. If they don't get a result there, they can appeal to the French Council of State. And if the highest appeal court in the French Republic also closes the door to Catalan, they say that they will take the case to the European Court of Human Rights.

Court: "The primacy of French is called into question"

On Tuesday, the Administrative Court of Montpellier gave its decision on the case heard on April 21st with regard to the changes made by the councils of Elna, Tarerac, Portvendres and Els Banys to allow Catalan to be spoken at their council meetings, with French translation also provided. The ruling, not unexpected, banned Catalan in the plenary sessions of these municipalities in Northern Catalonia, requiring them to modify their regulations in the next three months. The possibility of using Catalan in meetings was considered inadmissible by the the French state.

"The primacy of the French language is called into question by the internal regulation when it provides that the expression of the municipal councillors takes place first in Catalan with a later translation into French", the French court argued in its decision banning Catalan in these spaces. The court thus ruled that the regulations were unconstitutional. As part of their defence, the councils pointed to the endorsement of their action by the European Charter of Regional or Minority Languages, but the court limited itself to pointing out that compliance with this European Charter was "not mandatory".

After the court hearing on April 21st, Elna mayor Nicolas Garcia had already admitted that hopes for judicial support in the Montpellier hearing were slim: "I am not naive, I think it will be a political ruling. It's difficult to explain but the French state is afraid of a few councils in the Eastern Pyrenees."