The three Basque provinces – Labourd (Lapurdi), Basse Navarre (Behe Nafarroa) and Soule (Zuberoa) – share with their Spanish neighbours a common language – Euskera – and a strong sense of separate identity. The language is widely spoken, and Basques refer to their country as a land in itself, Euskal-herri, or, across the border in Spain, Euskadi. You see bilingual French/Euskera signage throughout the region (sometimes only the latter), so in this section we have given the Euskera for all locations in brackets after the French. Unlike their Spanish counterparts, few French Basques favour an independent state or secession from France, though a Basque département has been mooted. For decades the French authorities turned a blind eye to the Spanish Basque terrorist organization ETA, which used the region as a safe haven and organizational base. In recent years, however, as France has extradited suspected terrorists, incidents of violence and vandalism associated with nationalists have increased, notably around Bayonne and Pau.Administratively, the three French Basque provinces were organized together with Béarn in the single département of Basses-Pyrénées, now Pyrénées-Atlantiques, at the time of the 1789 Revolution, when the Basques' thousand-year-old fors (rights) were abolished. It was a move designed to curtail their nationalism, but ironically has probably been responsible for preserving their unity. Of late there have been proposals for the creation of a Pays-Basque département, hived off from the Pyrénées-Atlantiques, with its capital at Bayonne. Apart from the language and the beret basque, the most obvious manifestations of Basque national identity are the ubiquitous trinquets or frontons, the huge concrete courts in which the national game of pelota is played. Pairs of players wallop a hard leather-covered ball, either with their bare hands or a long basket-work extension of the hand called a chistera, against a high wall blocking one end of the court. It's extraordinarily dangerous – the ball travels at speeds of up to 200kph – and knockouts and worse are not uncommon. Trials of strength (force Basque), rather like Scottish Highland Games, are also popular, and include tugs-of-war, lifting heavy weights, turning massive carts and sawing giant tree trunks.
Pages in section ‘Pays Basque’: Food, Côte Basque, Labourd, Haute Soule.
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