Reader Question: I always hear people talk about the ‘south’ of France but not the ‘north’ of France in the same way. Is this an official term used by the government?
There is no ‘official’ designation for what constitutes the south of France, although the term is a widely accepted cultural one.
In French, the south is often called the ‘Midi de la France’.
Generally, the regions of Occitanie and the Provence-Alpes-Côte-d’Azur (Paca) are seen as being the ‘south’ of France, along with the majority of the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region and parts of the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes.
The Paca region lays claim to the term, using ‘Région Sud’, in branding on its trains and public transport. However, this is not recognised nationally.
Informally, a line can be drawn from west to east splitting France into ‘north’ and ‘south’ but similarly to the UK or the US, where this line falls varies from person to person.
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South of France geography
The most common viewpoint is the area south of Bordeaux and Lyon is the south of France, although others may put the line further north (up to La Rochelle on the western coastline) or exclude the mountainous eastern parts of France. Others say the line of the 45th parallel marks the south.
It is true that we hear less often of ‘the north of France’, and if referring to this, you should take care to avoid confusion with 'Nord', which is a department.
Otherwise, the main differences between north and south are cultural.
Although ‘France’ has existed as a nation state since the Middle Ages, in reality the south of France was largely left to its own devices and given a fair amount of autonomy, having little contact with the 'north' and Paris.
The Albigensian crusade was called against its rulers (who followed Catharism, deemed heretical by the Pope) in southern France, lasting between 1209 and 1229, which brought the area under more direct control.
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English control of France
Parts of the south-west were controlled by England up until the 15th century, and the south-east and some Alpine areas by the Kingdom of Savoy until the 1800s (Nice did not become part of France until 1860).
A stronger sense of a nation state developed after the French Revolution in 1789, when great efforts at centralisation were made.
This included bringing in a unified single language all people in the country would speak, at the detriment of local languages, especially with the start of free, secular, primary education in 1882.
Historically, France had been linguistically split into two major areas, taking their names for the local word for ‘yes’: the ‘langue d’oc’ in the south, and the ‘langue d'oïl’ in the north (with other regional languages spoken in certain areas such as Brittany and the Alps).
This linguistic divide can sometimes also be used as a general marker of where ‘north’ and ‘south’ France is.
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Occitan dialect
The spoken dialects of the south, known collectively as Occitan, were once suppressed by the French state as part of language rules, leading the number of speakers to drop considerably.
However, many in the south still speak a version of their local dialect to varying levels of fluency, and there are efforts to teach children in the south Occitan at schools.
Several words from Occitan or its languages/dialects have entered standard French.
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Culture and food
Some other markers revolve around cuisine.
Food in the south is generally cooked in olive oil, whereas in the north butter is the main fat.
Southern dishes comprise vegetables and ingredients more commonly found in the south, such as tomatoes, olives and courgettes. In the south-west, duck is prevalent.
Finally, political and religious divides have existed historically.
After the French Revolution, the south was seen as being more pro-monarchy and religious than the north and areas closer to Paris, but in the 19th century was seen as one of the most left-wing areas of France (nicknamed ‘la Midi Rouge’).
In modern times, the south – in particular areas close to the Mediterranean sea – have been heavily influenced by the migration patterns of the pieds-noir (white French people who settled in North Africa), and then Moroccans, Algerians, and Tunisians soon after.
