Question 11550 — cultural heritage

Summary

Mr. Peio Dufau alerts the Minister of Culture to the critical situation of the Basque language. Regional languages ​​constitute an essential element of France's heritage (article 75-1 of the Constitution) and their preservation is a shared responsibility between the State and local authorities. However, the Basque language, spoken by approximately 20% of the population of the northern Basque Country, remains today in a situation critical because below the threshold of 30% of speakers that UNESCO defines as essential for the survival of a language. Since the creation of the Public Office of the Basque Language (OPLB) in 2004 (GIP bringing together the State, the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region, the Pyrénées-Atlantiques department and the Basque Country urban community), a positive dynamic has been set in motion. Indeed, the draft language policy adopted unanimously by its members in 2006 aims to train complete bilingual speakers, namely people with a perfect command of the French and Basque languages. Basque society shows a strong demand for learning and using the language, in public life and the professional world. A survey carried out by the IFOP in 2025 confirms this collective desire: the vast majority of inhabitants of the Basque Country (91%), as well as a share A large proportion of French public opinion (77%) are in favor of “official recognition” of Basque. This societal expectation reinforces the legitimacy of an ambitious and concerted public policy. The parliamentary mission led by senators Max Brisson and Karine Daniel recalled the persistent fragility of regional languages ​​and the need for a reinforced financial commitment to guarantee the sustainability of these heritages living people and access to their teaching. In order to take a new qualitative and quantitative step and achieve the objective of 30% Basque speakers by 2050, the OPLB and its members developed a detailed budgetary projection in 2023, estimating the minimum needs at an additional 2.6 million euros per year, or 650,000 euros per member. However, despite this shared diagnosis, the State has only announced an increase of 100,000 euros in its participation, not even covering inflation, falls far short of real needs. This inability to respond to identified needs endangers the progress made over the past twenty years, weakens local stakeholders and threatens the political and social consensus built around linguistic revitalization. Another major player in linguistic policy, the Basque Cultural Institute saw its budget allocated by the DRAC reduced by 21% during the year. 000 euros, in revision of the commitments made in the spring, further accentuating the fragility of the Basque cultural ecosystem. He asks what means the Government intends to implement to strengthen the linguistic policy in favor of the Basque language. In particular, he would like the Minister to reinforce the funding share of the Ministry of Culture in the budget of the Public Office of the Basque Language and to ask her for her position on this. subject.

Machine translation from French. The official text remains authoritative.

Timeline

No timeline events have been ingested for this record yet.

Votes

No vote records are attached yet.

Versions

No version snapshots stored. Document URLs remain at the source.

Documents

No documents linked.

Sponsors

No sponsors or actors listed by the source.

Related records

No cross-record relationships stored yet.