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the manner of other historic regions of France (Brittany, Corsica,
Basque Country, Occitane, Alsace) North Catalonia possesses
a double personality easily identifiable with regards to its
history. The residents were late in integrating with the French
collectivity, whose language and customs they have now adopted.
This French adaptation accelerated itself with the World Wars
creating a sense of unity with northern France. The past successes
and the worldwide influence of France contributed equally to
the sentiment of membership to the hexagonal state of France.
Nevertheless, this double membership has challenged the personalities
of a number of men and women, trapping them between two equal
cultures, both deserving respect, in a territory where one is
legally allowed; and thus damaging the enriching connotation
of bi-culturality. In this reality only the French mentality
is recognised, and therefore stable and reassuring.
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The
Catalan part of the North Catalan personality knew a fervour
unsuspected from the time of a simple change of location to
the north of France, far from the region where the absence of
Catalanity provoked a natural yearning. This fervour gave birth
to friendships between Catalans in Paris, Marseilles, Lyon or
Mayotte and here the North Catalan found a balance between his
Catalanity and French-ness. This schizophrenia was revealed
in all the historic regions of France, in the metropolis and
on the outskirts. Often it was the beginning of a powerful drive
to the advantage of French culture. This attitude, named audo-odi
in Catalan – the horror of oneself – manifested itself by the
rejection of one’s own cultural values, the abandonment of one’s
mother tongue and the adoption of painstaking French. Today
audo-odi confirms its existence by the abandonment of the native
accent and the adoption of the standard accent, the rejection
of the local universe only to benefit the French space and the
negation of other Catalanity in Barcelona and the Catalan regions.
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