France

The Basque centres of France are of very different ages: some come from the homes that the post-war emigrants opened and others were born this century, and one is on the other side of the Atlantic. The Basque Government’s official register recognises eight Basque bodies in the country.¹

The one in Paris is the Pariseko Eskual Etxea, the Maison Basque de Paris, now in Saint-Ouen (see its history). According to euskalkultura.eus, in 2010 there was a priest from the diocese of Bayonne attached to the house, which offered music, folklore, Basque classes, festivals and a library.⁴

The one in Bordeaux, Bordeleko Eskual Etxea, was born in 1947 as a home where Basques who missed their land met, and over the years it became a cultural centre; today it occupies a house in the Saint-Pierre district.⁵ According to euskalkultura.eus, in 1967 it bought the building it occupied in 2010, when it had some 640 members; the register credits it with 786.⁴¹ The Basque students’ association Embata was also born in Bordeaux, in 1953.²

In Pau there is Lagunt eta Maita, founded in 1967: in Gan, according to euskalkultura.eus in 2011, and in Jacques Etchebarne’s house with a fronton, in Jurançon, according to the same outlet in 2010. The Basque Government recognised it on 9 December 2009. In 2011 it brought together 760 families and had reached 3,000 members, and on 26 November of that year it moved into premises of its own on the avenue de Buros.⁶⁴

Marseille, Montpellier and Lyon have centres from this century. The Marseillako Euskal Etxea was founded in 2014, according to the register.¹ Eskualdunak, in Montpellier, was recognised by the Basque Government on 9 May 2016, according to the association itself, and was the fifth in France, after Paris, Bordeaux, Pau and Marseille.⁷ The Lyoneko Euskal Etxea was founded in November 2020, during the second lockdown, according to the register.¹

In Toulouse there is Denak Bat, based in Colomiers. It has a traditional music ensemble with txistu, atabal and trikitixa, dance and Basque classes with volunteer teachers, joaldunak, txalaparta and a mixed choir that was revived in 2019.⁸

The eighth centre is in Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon, a French archipelago next to Newfoundland, which had Basque fishermen from at least the beginning of the sixteenth century. At the beginning of the seventeenth, fishermen from Saint-Jean-de-Luz, Ciboure and Gipuzkoa settled there (see the Basque whalers of Canada).⁹ The Zazpiak Bat fronton in Saint-Pierre was built in 1906, the Zazpiak Bat club was founded in 1952 and the local pelota league in 1986. Every August there is a Fiesta Vasca, and the Basque Government recognised its euskal etxea in 2017.¹⁰¹¹