Editing Forced assimilation (section)

==== France ====
{{main|Vergonha}}

[[France]] practiced forced assimilation of [[Occitans]] and other [[Languages of France|ethnic minorities]] whose native language was not [[French language|French]], such as [[Alsatians (people)|Alsatians]], [[French Basque Country|Basques]] and [[Northern Catalonia|Catalans]].<ref>{{Cite web |last=Joubert |first=Aurélie |date=2010 |title=A Comparative Study of the Evolution of Prestige Formations and of Speakers' Attitudes in Occitan and Catalan |url=https://www.research.manchester.ac.uk/portal/files/54504513/FULL_TEXT.PDF |website=www.research.manchester.ac.uk}}</ref> This process extended during the 19th and 20th centuries and was known as [[Vergonha]]. It included "being made to reject and feel ashamed of one's (or one's parents') mother tongue through official exclusion, humiliation at school and rejection from the media" and was endorsed by French political leaders from [[Henri Grégoire]] onward.<ref name="French National Convention">{{cite web |last1=Grégoire |first1=Henri |date=1790 |title=Report on the necessity and means to annihilate the patois and to universalise the use of the French language |url=https://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/Rapport_sur_la_n%C3%A9cessit%C3%A9_et_les_moyens_d%E2%80%99an%C3%A9antir_les_patois_et_d%E2%80%99universaliser_l%E2%80%99usage_de_la_langue_fran%C3%A7aise |access-date=16 January 2020 |website=Wikisource |publisher=French National Convention |language=fr |location=Paris}}</ref> The number of [[Occitan language|Occitan]] speakers in France was reduced from 39% of the French population in 1860 to 7% in 1993.<ref>Louis de Baecker, ''Grammaire comparée des langues de la France'', 1860, p. 52: ''parlée dans le Midi de la France par quatorze millions d'habitants'' ("spoken in the South of France by fourteen million inhabitants"). [http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k5846989r.f61.pagination.langEN.hl] + [http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k5846989r.f63.langEN]</ref><ref>Stephen Barbour & Cathie Carmichael, ''Language and nationalism in Europe'', 2000, p. 62: Occitan is spoken in 31 ''départements'', but even the [[European Bureau for Lesser-Used Languages|EBLUL]] (1993: 15–16) is wary of statistics: 'There are no official data on the number of speakers. Of some 12 to 13 million inhabitants in the area, it is estimated that 48 per cent understand Occitan, 28 per cent can speak it, about 9 per cent of the population use it on a daily basis, 13 per cent can read and 6 per cent can write the language.'</ref>

To this day, France has also continuously refused to ratify the [[European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages]], and native non-French languages in France continue to be denied official recognition, with [[Occitania|Occitans]], [[Basques]], [[Corsicans]], [[Catalan people|Catalans]], [[French Flanders|Flemings]], [[Bretons]], [[Alsace|Alsatians]], and [[Savoyard dialect|Savoyards]] still having no explicit legal right to conduct public affairs in their regional languages within their home lands.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Roger |first1=Geoffrey |date=2019 |title=The langues de France and the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages: Keeping Ratification at Bay Through Disinformation: 2014–2015 |url=https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-95939-9_14 |journal=French Language Policies and the Revitalisation of Regional Languages in the 21st Century |pages=309–333 |doi=10.1007/978-3-319-95939-9_14 |isbn=978-3-319-95938-2 |s2cid=158474654 |access-date=29 July 2022|url-access=subscription }}</ref>