A juicio de Financial Times, parte del futuro de Cataluña se encuentra en Francia, en la French Catalonia.

[ .. ]

Hipócrita lector, hermano, colega… ni entro ni salgo en lo que escribe Jill James para FT. Me parece sintomático e informativamente a tener muy encuentra. No hay ninguna lectura “política”, por mi parte. ¿Cataluña Norte? ¿Países Catalanes? ¿French Catalonia? ¿Francia? ¿España..? Nobody’s perfect.

Financial Times, 3 septiembre 2007

French Catalonia: Mountains of potencial

By Jill James

The most potent symbol of Catalan identity is Mont Canigou, the mountain that sits between the French city of Prades and the Spanish border. For Catalans it is their sacred mountain and has been celebrated in poetry and literature.

Most of the region’s 10m Catalan speakers live in Spain, in an area stretching from the Pyrénées to Valencia. A mere 120,000 Catalan speakers live on the French side of the border in the department of Pyrénées-Orientales in the Languedoc-Roussillon region.

On both sides of the border the Catalans delight in their separate identity – but on the French side it is more diluted. Identity apart, what both the French and Spanish Catalans have in common is a strong business ethic and acumen.

Today, most of the business set-ups in French Catalonia are small-scale. Wine, agriculture and tourism are the mainstays of the region and its business community is keen to encourage tourism ventures of all kinds. Campsites, chambres d’hotes and organic wine businesses are popular with incomers to the region who are looking for a lifestyle change. (Collioure is typical of the seaside towns of the region. Its most famous product – if you do not count anchovies – is art. And that can be directly attributed to the tourist industry.)

«We have a nice combination here of weather, transport and location,» says Igor Knibiehly, director of the departmental tourist committee for Pyrénées-Orientales. «We have good links to the rest of the south of France and Spain – particularly Barcelona – and London. The combination of sea and mountains make this area a great location for congress business and we are hoping to build on that,» he says.

«This is a perfect place for seminar and meetings and incentive businesses and we are widening that.»

There are growing numbers of British and Irish incomers to the region as well as more Spanish Catalans. This is quite a turn-up for the books because when the euro was first introduced most French Catalans sought the cheaper prices available over the border. Now the traffic is in both directions.

Les Pyrénées-Orientales – the eastern Pyrénées – forms the southernmost tip of France and is bordered by the Aude to the north, the Mediterranean to the east, Spanish Catalonia to the south and the principality of Andorra to the west.

No-frills airline Ryanair operates a daily service to Perpignan Rivesaltes airport from London Stansted in Essex (flight time just over an hour). The airport is 5km north of Perpignan, by to the route nationale and just 20 minutes from the Mediterranean.

Other options include Carcassonne Airport in the Aude and also Gerona/Barcelona Airports over the border (two-and-a-half hours from Perpignan). Air France operates up to four flights a day to Perpignan.

French Catalans are quick to point out the improvements to road infrastructure in the past few years. Routes into the mountains are not as isolated as they used to be and it has opened more possibilities for tourist businesses. The service sector is another area expected to grow.

Social and economic integration between north and south Catalonia has moved on since the introduction of the euro but there is still an enormous imbalance in industry between the Spanish and French sides of the border.

On the Spanish side, the Catalan Investment Agency has been very successful.

The business climate that has been created is a big factor for companies choosing to locate but French Catalans are becoming more pro-active in offering business incentives.

The technology sector, particularly in the field of solar power, wind energy and renewable resources, has taken off. The Espace Enterprise Meditéranée Rivesaltes, a 250-acre enterprise park 2km from the Perpignan north highway exit, has strong potential for attracting businesses that contribute to the environment.

Thanks to its 2,700 hours of sunshine and 130 days of wind per year, Pyrénées- Orientales has the potential to develop solar, hydraulic, geothermal and wind energies. Apart from creating hundreds of jobs, the region hopes to be a source of eco-industrial elements for the region.

It is worth noting that a solar furnace was built in in Odeillo 36 years ago and is thought to be the world’s largest. It consists of an enormous satellite that captures the sun’s rays at its centre using 10,000 mirrors and reaching temperatures of 3,000°C.

The region is encouraging development of this kind of technology. It is exploring the potential and actual uses of solar energy for domestic purposes, as well as energy crisis solutions.