Accent grave

摘要

NO SOONER HAD Jean Castex been appointed than Parisians seized upon their new prime minister's most distinctive feature: his regional accent. Born in the Gascon town of Vic-Fezensac, Mr Castex speaks with a south-westen twang. Locals take pride in the "accent that sings", which stems from Occitan, the local language. Yet Parisian mockery was thinly disguised. A Paris-Match journalist called it a "gravelly post-match rugby accent". A broadcaster said that his accent was more commonly reserved for rugby commentators or weathermen. Few members of the Parisian elite hang on to their regional accents, if they once had one. When Jules Ferry, a Third Republic education minister, imposed French as the sole language in schools in the 1880s, nursery teachers were told to "correct the flaws in pronunciation or local accent". Dropping a northern ch'ti accent, or a southern drawl, is often a prerequisite for survival under Paris's unforgiving social codes. French broadcasters, unlike those in Britain, still speak in identical metropolitan tones.