Occitan Nation Party - Press release : Presidential election

6 Avril 2012

Press release
Presidential election

The Occitan Nation Party asserts that Occitania is a nation whose territory is currently administered essentially by the French state and marginally by the Spanish state (Val d’Aran) and the Italian state (Occitan alpine valleys of the Piemonte region)

The Occitan Nation Party demands, in the name of the right of nations to self-determination, the peaceful unification of this territory and the setting up of a sovereign Occitan federal Republic that would be an EU and UN member.

This Republic will be built through stages (home rule for Occitan regions, the grouping together and the change of the boundaries of these regions and the federalization of the French Republic).

It is obvious that none of the ten candidates running for the 2012 French presidential election has such demands. Therefore, it is legitimate for those who more or less support our ideas to choose to abstain or to cast a blank vote or to spoil a ballot paper.

Nevertheless, some candidates have proposals that are more or less in accordance with ours.

As regards the languages of France, with the exception of French, within the French Republic, Eva Joly, the green candidate, the centrist François Bayrou and the socialist François Hollande are the only ones in favour of ratifying the European Charter for regional or minority languages, which would necessitate a constitutional reform. Nicolas Sarkozy refuses to ratify the Charter fearing auto-segregation. He did not honour his 2007 pledge to enact a law on regional languages.

On the other hand, for the Occitan Nation Party, a true linguistic democracy can only be conceivable in a different territorial organization for the French Republic involving real legislative and fiscal power for autonomous regions.

In that respect, only Eva Joly advocates a new organization of France according to a differentiated federal model, with stronger regionalization. Regions would have prescriptive competences and extensive fiscal autonomy.
François Bayrou does not seem to consider carrying on with devolution. He mentioned pooling competences of regions and departments rather than merging regions and departments. He would uphold territorial councillors but they would be elected by proportional representation.
François Hollande, proposing to carry out act III of devolution, wants Parliament to vote a law on territories giving them more autonomy in terms of taxation and would do away with territorial councillors.
Nicolas Sarkozy wants to enforce his territorial reform. Territorial councillors would be a first step towards merging departments and regions.
The proposals put forward by these candidates do not arouse the enthusiasm of the Occitan Nation Party. The other candidates either do not have stances on these topics or they are far worse. Consequently, we give liberty to the voters who share our views to decide to abstain, to spoil a ballot paper or to cast a blank vote or to vote for the candidate whose ideas are least far from ours for the first round or to cast a so-called tactical vote, taking into account the fact that we are in a political system where Occitan people and the other peoples of France cannot express themselves as such.