Mexico in the French Alps
Ubaye Valley, Alps, France. Image credit: No machine-readable author provided. Sobek assumed (based on copyright claims)., Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
An honorary Mexican consulate sits in the village of Barcelonnette in the Alpes-de-Haute-Provence near the Franco-Italian border and receives each newly appointed Mexican ambassador to France. This community of 2,500 residents in the Ubaye Valley claims to be the most Mexican of French towns with good reason. Nearly two centuries of ties are cherished and celebrated as part of the local culture, including two annual festivals that display the Mexican influence on Barcelonnette and its neighboring villages.
Not long after Mexico gained its independence from Spain in 1821, immigrants began to arrive from France in search of warm weather, the prospect of gold riches, and/or commercial opportunities. This group included Jacques, Marc-Antoine, and Dominique Arnaud, three brothers who had emigrated from the Ubaye Valley to Louisiana in the early 1800s, bringing their experience working in silk and textiles across the Atlantic. They moved to Mexico City, established a textile and clothing store called Las Siete Puertas, and sent for several weavers they had worked with in France. Word of the Arnauds’ success prompted others to follow from the Ubaye Valley and build their own businesses, primarily in textiles and banking, in Mexico. Ubayens were accustomed to traveling and trade, having regularly interacted with Italy, Corsica, Sardinia, and beyond.
Château des Magnans - Jausiers, France. Image credit: Ludovic Péron, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Another notable French immigrant to Mexico was Jean Baptiste Ebrard, who moved from Barcelonnette to Mexico City where he sold ribbons and lace out of portable trunks. In 1847, he opened a department store called The Cloth Case and later renamed it Liverpool in honor of the English city through which many of the store’s imported goods passed. Liverpool today encompasses well over 100 department stores across Mexico.
Armed conflict between the armies of Emperor Napoleon III and the forces of Mexican leader Benito Juárez erupted between 1861 and 1867 but did not deter the French settlers nor the flow of Ubayens to Mexico. The French Emperor encouraged his countrymen to move to Mexico to fulfill his desire to establish a strong Catholic counterpart to the Protestant United States. Records indicate that the vast majority of French immigrants remained in Mexico although several who had lived and prospered there eventually returned to Barcelonnette near the end of the 1800s. Their wealth funded the construction of grand homes and gardens, many situated along the Avenue de la Libération and given Mexican-tinged names. These were called villas mexicaines and maisons mexicaines, terms that do not refer to the style of the buildings but to the original owners who were called ‘les Mexicains’ whereas in Mexico they were called ‘los Barcelonnettes’.
Although French emigration to Mexico waned after World War II, Barcelonnette’s history sowed deep roots. One of the exhibits at the Musée de la Vallée at La Sapinière, a villa mexicaine constructed in 1878 by the Reynaud family, revisits the history of Barcelonnette emigration to Mexico and the Americas. It is the only villa mexicaine open to public visits, including its grounds that feature flora from around the world and now constitute a municipal park. The museum also contains art and objects collected by travelers who left the valley and returned to the area; in particular, those of world traveler, naturalist, and writer Émile Chabrand, a young ‘Barcelonnette’ who lived in Mexico from 1863 to 1881 after first moving to Buenos Aires. He returned briefly to his hometown before embarking on a long tour of Asia, the United States, and back to Mexico, bringing a broad assortment of items back to France and authoring “Le tour du monde d’un Barcelonnette”, an award-winning manuscript about his voyages.
A maison mexicaine in Barcelonnette, France. Image credit: Twice25 & Rinina25, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
The village has two sister communities that reflect its historical ties: Valle de Bravo in Mexico and Arnaudville, Louisiana, and holds two annual festivals that commemorate the longstanding relationships among them. Les Fêtes Latino-Mexicaines are held in Barcelonnette over ten days every August with Mexican cuisine, dances and shows, mariachi bands, and joyful celebrations of Mexican culture. And while elsewhere in France the holiday of Toussaint is observed with solemnity each November 1, in Barcelonnette the three-day observance of La Fête des Morts pays homage to the Mexican traditions of El Día de los Muertos. Residents and visitors remember their ancestors with mariachi bands, folk dances, parades, flowers, costumes, and decorations inspired by years of cultural exchanges.
Jeu de français
Both French and Spanish are Romance languages derived from the Latin used during the times of the Roman Empire. Many words are similar and some are the same except for the accents and pronunciation. In the word search below, find twelve words that are spelled the same in both languages except for accent marks.
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