Letter from La Septimanie: La Septimanie, like the rest of France, will go to the polls on May 29th in the referendum of the European Constitution. The rest of France, mind you, probably does not know where or what La Septimanie is even though the inhabitants of La Septimanie know a lot about the rest of France.
The area that runs from the Pyrenees to the Rhone is generally known as the region of Languedoc-Rousillon and consists of the départements of Lozère, Gard, Hérault, Aude and Pyrenées Orientales. But Georges Frêche, the president of the regional council, is not keen on being the political boss of a hyphenated entity. He is instead a committed Septimanian.
Frêche, for 22 years socialist mayor of Montpellier, is France's longest-serving and most dynamic regional politician He has two important projects. The first is to reach back into his region's past, drop the Languedoc- Rousillon tag and let everyone know that he, and I for that matter, live in La Septimanie or Septimania in Latin or English.
The name dates back to the time of Emperor Augustus when the seventh legion, the Septimanii, settled in the area. The region's official documents and newsletters, in French, Catalan and Occitan, the three regional languages now carry the name "Septimanie".
There is some opposition with Frêche's political opponents referring to the close resemblance to septicaemia with the added intimations of mania thrown in. But Georges Frêche is a man who gets his way.
Frêche's second project is to ensure that Septimania votes Oui in the upcoming referendum on the European constitution. At a recent meeting in the town of Maraussan, famous for its strawberries and sweet dessert wine, Frêche struck a decidedly Napoleonic note and declared that those calling for rejection of the constitution had better watch out because "the Grande Armée of Oui is advancing."
Well it now seems that the army of Oui is on the retreat. The latest opinion poll published in regional newspaper Midi Libre shows the Non vote on 53 per cent against 47 per cent for Oui with a predicted turnout of 68 per cent. Frêche's political heartland, the département of Hérault with Montpellier at its centre, is set to give a resounding affirmative, but the rest of the region is strongly against the constitution.
In the mainly Catalan département of Pyrenées Orientales the Non vote is predicted to reach almost 55 per cent mainly due to dissatisfaction among small businesses such as tobacconists and petrol stations which have to compete with much cheaper prices across the border in Spain.
In the département of Gard which has strong traditions of communism in politics and Calvinism in religion, the Non vote is predicted at over 60 per cent.
The result, if it turns out as forecast, will represent a major defeat for Frêche and it must be said that there has been little sign of his Grande Armée in these parts.
France, according to the left-of-centre magazine Le Nouvel Observateur, has been inflamed by the referendum on Europe's constitution. The Nouvel Ob's analysis may be correct for the Hexagon, as Metropolitan France, calls itself, but signs of inflammation in Septimania are negligible. In the village where I spend part of the year, right in Septimanian heartland, just two election posters have appeared so far.
Both call for a Non vote but they do so from the two extremes of French politics.
The Parti Communiste Français (PCF) proclaims the hope that the sun will shine on May 29th and that the vote be Non. The neo- fascist National Front of Jean-Marie Le Pen concentrates on the fear that Turkey's future membership of the EU may lead to a flood of Islamic immigration.
It does, however, stop short of calling the Turks kebabs.
Campaigners against the constitution have daubed many roads in the area with slogans while in the media, the most frequently heard opinion is that the new constitution would be a good idea for the "ultra liberal" United Kingdom in that it would provide a greater social dimension, but that it would be bad for a well-regulated country like France.
In the meantime, I am still waiting to see the first Oui poster go up in my own sector of La Septimanie. The only one I have seen so far has not even been in France. Along the quays of the Tiber in Rome where I attended a wedding at the weekend, Italians were being urged to write letters to their friends in France urging them to vote Si. It would appear that politicians in Rome are more active in the campaign for the constitution than their counterparts in Paris or Perpignan.
