El Centre d'Estudis Catalans de la Sorbona

Interviewer

Thank you very much, Michel, for your kindness and for the hospitality of letting us use the space of the Centre d'Estudis Catalans de la Sorbonne, which you direct. Could you explain a little about the work you do here from this center in Paris?

Michel

The Catalan Studies Center in Paris, located at the Sorbonne, has existed since 1977. The original project dates back to 1972, during the Franco regime, when a group of Catalans linked to the Sorbonne—artists, intellectuals, and members of Òmnium Cultural—began advocating for its creation. They sought to establish a center with a library to house the Francesc Cambó collection, donated by the politician to the Sorbonne in 1930. In 1972, it was decided to allocate this space in the Marais district, a building owned by the City of Paris and leased to the Sorbonne for 60 years. The center was inaugurated in 1977, serving as a hub for Catalan language studies for those interested in the language in Paris.

Interviewer

What kind of activities are you doing right now?

Michel

We offer all the regular Catalan classes as electives in the various degree programs of the Faculty of Arts at the Sorbonne. There is no longer a specific degree for Catalan philology specialists; that existed in the past—a kind of double philology between Hispanic and Catalan studies—but it could not be sustained due to a lack of candidates and students.

We do offer introductory classes in the language, literature, and history of Catalonia. The language initiation is taught in Catalan, and students gradually learn, but the introductions to literature and the civilization of the Catalan-speaking regions must be taught in French because we often have students from diverse backgrounds—sociology, philosophy, history, English, modern literature, Hispanic studies, and more.

The lingua franca is French and we must deliver the content in French. This pertains to the curricular part. These classes are not held here; they take place at the various Sorbonne campuses. Here we run evening classes—so-called "cours du soir"—from 5 to 8 every day, except Wednesdays, when there are different groups with different levels for non-university attendees, or sometimes also for university students, though being a Sorbonne student is no longer a requirement.

We offer Catalan language and culture courses, which also prepare students for the official certification from the Institut Ramon Llull. We have three levels, and these levels are ensured by lecturers from the Sorbonne. We have our own lecturer at the Sorbonne and another from the Institut Ramon Llull, and the Institut Ramon Llull supports us financially to hire this second lecturer and to organize additional activities beyond what the Sorbonne provides.

Since 77, major names in contemporary Catalan painting have passed through this center.

Interviewer

For example?

Michel

78-piece Tàpies donated by the Centre d'Estudis Catalans a year after its opening, dated November 78.

The great names have indeed passed through here.

Interviewer

How fortunate you are, truly. And what can you tell us about the Catalans in Paris?

Michel

Well, as of 2025, there’s a bit of everything. There are children, grandchildren, or great-grandchildren of those who fled, as well as people from more recent waves of migration. Paris has always been a city that has drawn many Catalans in recent decades, and Catalans who have come more recently too—people looking for work here or who have job opportunities, and there are different profiles.

The library, precisely, can also be used by Catalans or, well, Catalans and people interested in Catalan literature, in French or in Catalan, and if they still don’t have access to it in Catalan, they can come and use the library like a neighborhood library, as if they were in any Catalan city.

Therefore, yes, we try to provide a cultural response, content to all the people, well, to the Catalans of Paris or to the Catalanophiles of Paris, coming from different places as well.

Interviewer

So how come you speak Catalan so well if you're French? Were you born here, in France, right?

Michel

Yes.

Interviewer

Tell us your story.

Michel

Yes. I was born in Paris—Parisian by birth. My parents were from Aragon, so a Spanish-speaking family, Aragonese not from the Strip but Spanish-speaking. However, we were very connected to Barcelona for family reasons and also to Vinaròs, where we used to spend the summers. We spent more time there when I was a child; we spent more time in Vinaròs than in Teruel, for example, which is in the province they originally came from.

I always felt an attraction, first to the signs, to the conversations I heard. My parents also had many Valencian friends here in Paris, and I felt that among them they spoke something else, and very often I had the feeling that we were the only ones who only spoke Spanish and French, and that everyone around us spoke something more, and I already understood that it was Catalan, that in Vinaròs they called it Valencian, but the neighbors of Vinaròs were also Catalans, so I had this double...

I also understood it quite easily, and at 15, 16 years old I began to take it seriously and wanted to speak it myself, as well as read and write it.

I remember that my first contact... My sister had studied Catalan here as well, she had also studied Hispanic philology and had some content here, and therefore I heard about the Centre d'Estudis Catalans when I was a child. And when I started my degree, there was that double Hispanic and Catalan philology.

I was able to do that double degree and enjoy an accelerated training starting at 18 in Catalan, and with the lecturers, the Erasmus students… A little Catalonia had been created here, a small Catalan-speaking circle, and I really got to practice… I was in linguistic immersion, I think even better than in Barcelona, probably, because I was speaking Catalan all day with the whole group that formed around the centre, and with the professors at the time, Marie-Claire Zimmermann, who was the director, Anne Charlon, who later became my thesis supervisor, Marina Mestre, who also passed through here, and many lecturers, Narcís Iglésias, who was my first Catalan teacher here in the beginner classes.

I had only done a distance-learning module in Catalan and regional language before university. Then I studied the optional Catalan and regional-language course pretty much on my own, using the volumes sent from Toulouse—Professors Gamisans and Camproví—along with the fascicle and cassettes. I’m talking about the year 95, when everything arrived via 95 or 96 by mail, and it was like…

Before starting the double philology degree here, I already had that prior distance-learning experience in Catalan.

Interviewer

I see what future you envision for Catalan in Paris?

Michel

Paris is a very large city, a cosmopolitan capital with many interests in many subjects, and I believe Catalan still has a presence. There have been cycles of more interest, less interest, but there is always a part of France that is Catalan-speaking; there are people from the Roussillon living here in Paris, and there are people from the Roussillon—even if they are not necessarily Catalan speakers—who, when they come to Paris and see the Centre d’Estudis Catalans, take notice and go in, wanting to participate. Therefore, I believe there is always an interest.

Evidently, it's not an interest that will draw thousands upon thousands of people; we couldn't accommodate them all anyway. You've seen the space—it's a small one—but it's an ideal space for the content we offer and for the people we can host. We're talking about...

We have around 250 curricular students interested in Catalan at the Sorbonne—specifically Sorbonne Université—and there are many more at other Parisian universities; in fact, they can also use the library of the Centre d’Estudis Catalans with a student card from any university in the Île-de-France region.

We have around 50 people in total for evening classes. Therefore, to accommodate these individuals, we have ideal dimensions, and to offer artistic content and bring in... Next week, for example, we will have an opening and around 50, 60 people will be able to attend the opening of the Eduard Arranz Bravo exhibition, and so...

We cannot accommodate more, but at events we always welcome the maximum number of people we can, and it is always very gratifying, obviously.

Interviewer

Many of our heritage Catalan speakers in the study have told us how important it was for them to come to the centre and start learning the language they had heard at home but never learned, never read, and where they discovered formal Catalan, literature, Catalan culture, civilisation, and history...

Well, several of our heritage-language participants have told us how important it was to come to the center and start learning the language they’d heard at home but never actually learned, never read—it was here they discovered formal Catalan, literature, Catalan culture, civilization, history… And a few of these participants have told us that the 4th year—yes, they can repeat it as many years as they want—and how important that 4th year of repeating it year after year has been in their lives, as well as for building a community of Catalan speakers and a place to come together, chat, talk, and practice.

So you are doing truly important work for all these people.

Michel

I believe so, and in fact we have... I don't know if it's a privilege, I think it is, but my predecessors did this: they managed to have this fourth level of evening classes formally called, formally they are a "diplôme universitaire," but in reality they no longer grant any university degree.

It is a specificity they fought and struggled to maintain, because the administrative burdens, the university paperwork, is very complex, and we can have this congruence of a "diplôme universitaire" that does not grant any degree. They have already achieved it; they already hold the three degrees from the three previous levels, and in some cases they even have certification from the Institut Ramon Llull, but it is the way we found, or that my predecessors found, to keep them, and indeed to maintain this cohesion, this network.

It is true that it is very important for them to continue practicing, and the only administrative way to keep them here is to admit them as students in a degree program of their own, but which in reality will no longer award any degree, and that’s fine, that’s fine, they tolerate it, but I believe it is a unique case at the French university.

Interviewer

Do you have any questions, Núria?

Speaker 3

There aren't any figures on Catalans in Paris or Catalan speakers or...

Interviewer

At least in France...

Speaker 3

Around 600,000 Spaniards were living in France at that time.

I never had data on Catalans. And I don’t know if you understand or...

Michel

No.

Speaker 3

No.

Michel

I don't know how that could be achieved, really. I suppose we'd have to get in touch with the various Spanish consulates general in France—there are several, and even more the further south you go. There are ones in Bayonne, Toulouse, Bordeaux, Perpignan, obviously, and there used to be many more.

I don't know if they could have the number of declared Spanish residents, because there are the declared and the undeclared, and then knowing the province of origin.

Speaker 3

Of course, but the Catalans are also the children of Catalans, who are already French, so it is very difficult to have... it is very difficult to know which... to census and to know how many speakers there are.

Michel

The number of Catalans who vote from Spanish consulates during elections to the Parliament of Catalonia could be observed.

Speaker 3

But this would be recent immigration.

Michel

Surely.

Speaker 3

Yes. Because many of our participants, many were born in Pàtrides or hold French nationality and have requested Spanish citizenship...

Michel

Several of them are now requesting it.

Speaker 3

In the last 20 years, quite a few have explained this to us.

Michel

These days there were, yes, queues at the consulates in Toulouse and Perpignan.

Speaker 3

The last day to apply for the grandparents' allowance, I think. That is, if it's your father you can apply, but if it were the grandparents, I think it was the last few days. And yes, there were queues. I don't know if you want to mention anything else you'd like to come out or...

We don’t yet know how we’ll set all this up afterward, somehow, but…

Michel

In 2027 we will celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Centre d’Estudis Catalans, so it will be a year in which we will also… we will have, then… this is indeed a world first: we will hold exhibitions to showcase all the artists who have passed through here, we will display the heritage held by the Centre d’Estudis Catalans with all the donations we have received over the years, and we will mount three or four exhibitions featuring what we have as well as works by other painters who have been through here.

Speaker 3

We now have homework, because that means by 27 we should have our documentary ready so you can show it.

Michel

It would be perfect. Perfect, yes, yes.

Speaker 3

But when will it be?

Michel

The year 2027, but especially at the end of 27, because here... because the center was inaugurated in November 27. It was inaugurated with musical pieces by Carles Santos from Vinaròs, who was here, along with Xavier Valls, the painter, who was also here at that time.

Speaker 3

The father of Manuel Valls.

Michel

The father of Manuel Valls, yes, yes. And Lluïsa Valls, who is the mother and widow of Xavier Valls, who is a regular at the center's events and lives right next door, visiting very often. She is one of the faithful here in the neighborhood and the city, yes.

Speaker 3

I see, you've given me homework. That would be great, right?

Michel

Well, that would be very nice, yes.

Speaker 3

It would be great, yes, yes, yes, it would be very good. Look, do you see? We already have a horizon for our documentary, because it could be edited and it could be done like one of the things.

Michel

Yes, indeed.

Speaker 3

It would be very nice.

Michel

Yes.

Speaker 3

Thank you very much, Michel. It's been a pleasure.