French Basque Country


The French Basque Country, or Northern Basque Country, is a region lying on the west of the French department of the Pyrénées-Atlantiques. Since 1 January 2017, it constitutes the Basque Municipal Community presided over by.
It includes three former historic French provinces in the north-east of the traditional Basque Country totalling : Lower Navarre, until 1789 nominally Kingdom of Navarre, with ; Labourd, with ; Soule, with. The population included in the Basque Municipal Community amounts to 309,723 inhabitants distributed in 158 municipalities.
It is delimited in the north by the department of Landes, in the west by the Bay of Biscay, in the south by the Southern Basque Country and in the east by Béarn, which is the eastern part of the department. Bayonne, Anglet, and Biarritz form the BAB agglomeration, while Saint-Jean-de-Luz is another major town, all included in the Basque Eurocity Bayonne-San Sebastián Euroregion. It is a popular tourist destination and is somewhat distinct from neighbouring parts of the southern Basque Country, since it was not industrialized as Biscay or Gipuzkoa and remained agricultural and a beach destination.

Territory

The department of the Pyrénées-Atlantiques is divided into three districts or arrondissements: The Arrondissement of Bayonne, the Arrondissement of Oloron-Sainte-Marie, and the Arrondissement of Pau. French Basque Country includes all of Bayonne and Canton of Montagne Basque in Oloron-Sainte-Marie. Additionally, it includes the following territories in Béarn: Esquiule, Aramits, Géronce, and Arette.
The French Basque Country included three pre-existing historic territories before the departmental division of France in 1789, with a few modifications:
  • Labourd. Bayonne is conventionally considered part of Labourd, but it stopped belonging to it in the 13th century. A few municipalities are considered a part of Lapurdi and are a part of the "Council of the Elected" and the "Council of the Development of the French Basque Country" but did not belong the historic region of Lapurdi. Among them are Boucau, which belonged to the department of Landes until 1857, Bardos, Guiche, and Urt. Lapurdi is located within the Arrondissement of Bayonne.
  • Lower Navarre. Arancou, Came, and Sames belong to Lower Navarre and are a part of the Council of Elects and the Council of the Development of the French Basque Country. They were dependent on the Seneschal of Dax during the Ancien Régime, not dependent on Navarre. Bidache, a territory that was a sovereign principality during the Ancien Régime, did not belong to Navarre although it is also a part of the Council of Elects and the Council of the Development of the French Basque Country. On the other hand, Escos has usually not been considered a part of Lower Navarre, even though it belonged to Navarre during the Ancien Régime. Additionally, it has not entered the Councils of the French Basque Country. Lower Navarre is located within the Arrondissement of Bayonne.
  • Soule. Esquiule is usually included on the list of Souletin populations, since its population is historically Basque-speaking. However, it became part of Béarn and has not requested admission into the Councils of the French Basque Country. Soule is divided between the districts of Bayonne and Oloron-Sainte-Marie, where the majority of its communes are located. These 35 Souletin communes of the Arondissement of Oloron-Sainte-Marie are a part of a Municipal Commonwealth, the Communauté de Communes de Soule-Xiberoa.

    Cities

The most important city in the territory is Bayonne. The ancient Roman Lapurdum, from which the toponyms Labourd and Lapurdi originate, is a part of the Biarritz-Anglet-Bayonne agglomeration community alongside Biarritz and Anglet, the most populated urban space in the territory. It is the political capital of its subprefecture and economic capital of the largest region, which includes the French Basque country and the south of Landes. Other important places are Saint-Jean-de-Luz, Hendaye, Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port, the capital of Lower Navarre, and Mauleón, the capital of Soule.

Proposed institutional reforms

A slow but continuous French institutional evolution has been produced as a response to the historical claims of the French Basque Country. By an order from 29 January 1997 from the prefect of the Pyrénées-Atlantiques, a "Basque Country" was recognized as a Pays, according to the French administrative category, in accordance with the laws called: the Pasqua Law from 4 February 1995, and the Voynet Law from 25 June 1999. These are based on the notion of a country in the traditional sense, as a society belonging to a place, culture, etc., promoting the organization and development of the territory in a global manner.
The creation of an institution of greater substance than what was represented by the geographical organization of pays and more specifically of a Basque department, has been a constant element during that last decades in elected posts for the main political parties, with representation from the French Socialist Party, The Republicans, and nationalist parties. 64% of Basque-French mayors support such a creation. The Association des Élus is an association that groups political posts such as regional councilors, general councilors and mayors of the French Basque Country, from both political spectrums, whose goal is to achieve the division of the Pyrénées-Atlantiques department into Basque and Béarnese departments respectively.
The Council of the Development of the French Basque Country was created in 1994, and in 1995 the Council of the Elected of the French Basque Country was created.
On 15 January 2005, the Euskal Herriko Laborantza Ganbara, was created as a house for the representation and promotion of the interests of livestock farmers and agriculturists of the French Basque Country, promoted by the agrarian union, Laborarien Batasuna. Initially, this institution wasn't recognised, and its function was illegal. Now, its function is regulated and receives subventions from the Regional Council of Aquitaine.
In 2012, the French government proposed the creation of a single commonwealth for all of the towns in French Basque Country, under two conditions: being approved by at least half of the 158 communes in the historic territory, and that at least half of the nearly 300,000 residents be represented within this historic territory. After a process of municipal meetings, on 2 May 2016, both conditions were met.
On 1 January 2017, the Agglomeration Community of Basque Country, was created: an intercommunal cooperation movement, which promotes a greater level of autonomy, with the French administrative categorization as an official territorial administrative structure with greater abilities than a pays, but fewer than a French department, and that is made up of a union of ten commonwealths and 157 of the 159 Basque communes, plus one Béarnese community.

History

Prehistoric era

The oldest human remains that are known of in the territory of the current French Basque Country are approximately 150,000 years old. Some houses have been found on the terraces of the river Adour, in Ilbarritz, Saint-Pierre-d'Irube and Mouguerre. In the Middle Paleolithic era, Neanderthals inhabited this area. At the beginning they lived in the open air and later in caves, like the one in Isturits. Cro-Magnon people appeared during the Upper Paleolithic.
Many artistic objects from the Magdalenian era have been found in Isturits.
The most well-known object found is a bird bone with three holes in it in the shape of a txistu. Moving into the Mesolithic era, humans began to live outside of caves, despite the fact that these were still used until a much later date. Also, during this era, the artefacts of ceramics, agriculture, and raising livestock were discovered.
During the Neolithic era, new techniques for the use of metals and agriculture arrived.

Antiquity

The present-day territory was inhabited by the Tarbelli and the Sibulates, tribal divisions of the Aquitani. When Caesar conquered Gaul, he found all the region south and west of the Garonne inhabited by a people known as the Aquitani, who were not Celtic and are nowadays assumed to have been early Basques. In early Roman times, the region was initially known as Aquitania, but by the end of the 3rd century, when use of the name Aquitania was extended to cover the region up to the river Loire, as Novempopulania. Its name in Latin means the nine peoples, as a reference to the nine tribes that inhabited it:
The region reached a high level of Romanization, as many of the toponyms with Latin or Celtic suffixes, such as -acum or -anum, demonstrate. In the north of what is now French Basque Country, these become more frequent: e.g., Loupiac and Gaillan. However, in the southeast of the territory, the less Romanized area, toponyms with Basque suffixes are abundant: -ousse, -ous -ost, and -oz, such as Biscarrosse and Almandoz, for example; some inscriptions have words similar to those in Basque on them.

Middle Ages

After the Germanic invasions that caused the fall of the Roman Empire, the ancient province began to be referred to as Wasconia according to texts by Frankish chroniclers, mainly Gregory of Tours and the Chronicle of Fredegar from the 6th century, and was differentiated from the trans-Pyrenean territories that later chroniclers in the Ravenna Cosmography called Spanoguasconia.
In the year 418, the Visigoths moved to the region in accordance with a federation pact or foedus made with Rome, but they were forced to leave in 507 as a consequence of their defeat against the Merovingians led by King Clovis I at the battle of Vouillé. After Clovis I's death in 511, the heirs to his throne consolidated their northern possessions centered on Neustria and Austrasia, placing them under the direct control of the sovereign, while the rest of their territories were organized into autonomous entities led by powerful officials of the kingdom: counts, dukes, patricians, and vice chancellors, in accordance with the Merovingian tradition of decentralizing power.
In Wasconia and the Pyrenean periphery in Vasconum saltus, armed incursions and confrontations with Merovingian potentates were frequent during the last third of the 6th century. Venantius Fortunatus' chronicles cite the clashes with the Frankish king Chilperic I and the comes from Bordeaux, Galactorio, up until 580, while Gregory of Tours wrote about the incursions Duke Austrobald faced in 587 after the defeat of Duke Bladastes in 574 at Soule.
After the Basque rebellions against Roman feudalism in the late 4th and 5th centuries, the area was eventually incorporated as part of the independent Duchy of Vasconia in 602, a mixed ethnic polity stretching south of the river Garonne that broke up during the 8th to 9th centuries, following the Carolingian expansion, the pressure of Norman raids, and introduction of feudalism. At this time, the County of Vasconia was created, extending around the river Adour. According to Iñaki Bazán, after the Duchy was created, the Frankish kings Theuderic II and Theudebert II exercised better military control over the area, including better tax collection and judicial administration, placing Duke Genial at the forefront. Later, between 635 and 638, King Dagobert I set out on a campaign to repress the Vascon inhabitants that eventually led to their submission.
In the 8th century, a second autonomous Duchy of Gascony was created. By the end of the 9th century, Guillermo Sanchez was named the duke of all Vascons. Some years later, Guy Geoffroy united the duchies of Vasconia and Aquitania.
During this period, northern Basques very likely participated in the successive battles of Roncevaux against the Franks, in 778, 812 and 824. Count Sans Sancion detached from the Franks and became the independent commander of Vasconia, but got involved in the Carolingian dynastic wars over succession after taking over Bordeaux, supporting the young Pepin II to the throne of Aquitaine. He became Duke of Vasconia after submitting to Charles the Bald.
At this point, the Basque language was losing ground to Vulgar Latin and written Latin and was increasingly confined to the lands around the Pyrénées. Since 963, the town Saint-Sever has been referred to as caput vasconiae, interpreted as meaning "the limit of Vasconia" or "prominence of Vasconia".
The evangelization of the territory that today comprises French Basque Country was slow and precarious. Beginning in the 9th century, and in part due to the peregrination to Santiago de Compostela, a stable and long-lasting ecclesiastic organization was established in the region. The most important trails leading to Santiago pass through the region, and this greatly influenced the development of the trails and the villas in the territory up to the present day.