La frabrique de l'Autre : le Midi au xixe siècle ou l'invention d'une haine française

Abstract

Since the midst 15th century, the Occitan language has been depreciated as all the southern accents have. But during the whole 19th century people questioned the fact that the Meridional language was a form of real French language. Many writers have stressed the excessiveness and the violence of the persons coming from the south of France. Indeed they used the theory of climates to give a scientific seeming interpretation to build up ethno types. Thus an anti meridionalism takes part in French common aversions. As it endangers the country in a triple way (military, political and social) the Midi area embodies an anti-France in the eyes of the reactionary people. This form of anti-meridionalism shows the intellectual process of the creation of The Others.