Stirrings From Ethnic Minorities In France

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31784, 14 September 1968, Page 19

Stirrings From Ethnic Minorities In France

(From HOWARD WILLIAMS in Brussels) Considering General de Gaulle’s perseverance in telling other heads of state and governments how to run their own countries, one could be forgiven for believing that all was well in France.

Despite the riots of May and June and the threats of new riots later this year, the French President appears to remain determined to tell other countries how to behave (Nigeria being the latest). He remains unrepentant over his infamous “Vive Quebec Labre” speech in Canada last year and is freely offering his “advice” to independent African states. So strong are his interventions on behalf of minority ethnic groups in other lands, that France’s own minority groups are willingly taking up their leader’s caU. Unfortunately, however, the support is not for the leader himself. The French minority groups want what he is demanding for other minorities . . . independence. Latest Hint The latest hint of nationalism from France’s many ethnic minorities has come from the country’s Flemish region—Pas de Calais. This follows a recent cultural gathering at Waregem, Belgium, for Flemings from Belgium, Holland and Pas de Calais. Belgium’s leading Frenchlanguage paper, “Le Soir,” accused the Flemings of developing “Flemish imperialism”

The Flemings deny that they were attmepting anything political such as the reunification of Belgian Flanders with Pas de Calais. But almost anything is possible and the French Flemings could very well come to similar ambitions as their fellow Frenchmen further along the English Channel—the Celtic originated Britons.

Spurred on by the success of their ethnic cousins In Scotland and Wales, a small group of Bretons has started a “Home Rule For Britanny” movement And, like the Welsh and Scottish nationalist parties, they are gaining increasing support Bona Fide Frenchmen Together, the French Flemings and French Celts provide a little doubt about whether there really is such a person as a bona fide Frenchman.

Certainly there are some in the Roussillon district, on France’s Mediterranean border with Spain, who would question any definition of a Frenchman that might be forthcoming from the General. Their argument has nothing to do with Flemish or Celtic nationalism. They are Basque nationalists. And although the French Basque nationalists have not recently been as militant as the Spanish Basque nationalists, the French Basques agree with the French Flemings and the French Celts that they are not in fact French. To further complicate the issue, this view is also shared by several inhabitants of France’s Alpine region. For although the French Alpinists, like the French Basques, French Celts and French Flemings, speak French, they claim that in character they are something quite different. The French Alpinists are Alpinists, just like their Alpinist compatriots in Switzerland and Italy. (But don’t confuse the Italian Alpipists with the Italian South Tyroleans who maintain that they are Austrian. That, regrettably, is another story). But it all comes back to General de Gaulle, self-pro-claimed champion of the ethnic minorities seeking independence. Perhaps somebody should tell him about those ethnic minorities in his own country!

Plant Engineers.—-Officers elected at the annual meeting of the New Zealand Institute of Plant Engineers were:— chairman, Mr D. Er Bailey; deputy-chairman, Mr E. R. Musson; secretary, Mr E. Langridge; treasurer, Mr N. J. Stick; committee, Messrs J. W. Brooks, W. J. D. Snook, W. I. Miller, K. M. Hyde, R. P. M. Childs, D. R. Parfitt, and A. H. R. Macintosh.