There is a town called Llivia which is Spanish and not French, tho it is
inside
Spain, just a little east of Andorra./ In the Treaty of the Pyrenees (1669(?))
the spanish and the French finally finalised their border, at the end of what
others had finished in 1648. The Spanish granted to France several villages
(about 33) that were on the northern side of the Pyrenees. One, Llivia, had
been the capital of the local region, so was officially a town, not a village,
and therefore claimed the treaty was invalid for it. The French were too
exhausted to do much about it, so Llivia remained spanish, connected by a
'neutral' road, a couple of km long. The town was a refuge during the Spanish
civil war, and has been a dutyfree place too, at lewast until the EU rules
started coming into effect.
Thus your village will be one of the 30-odd others the Spanish gave to France,
and maybe is jealous of the 'advantages' Llivia seems to enjoy.
Here is a bibliogrphy for Llivia. I recommend Sahlins in particular for
info on
the other villages, and Hertslet for the text of the Franco-Spanish treaty,
tho
other volumes of historic treaties should have it too. The Economist
article is
quite interesting too. The NZ Herald one just a reprint of this, minus a
paragraph or two.
I an studying exclaves, so any further info on this newsreport of yours, or a
map of the commune the village is in would be nice if you can give me
references.
Brendan Whyte
Geography Dept
Uni Melbourne
Australia
Catudal, H. M. (1974). “Exclaves.” Cahiers de Geographie de Quebec 18(43):
107-36.
Farran, C. D. O. (1955). “International Enclaves and the Question of State
Servitudes.” International and Comparative Law Quarterly 4(April): 297-307.
Herald Special Service (1988). Strange Border Quirks. New Zealand Herald.
Auckland: section 1, p8.
Hertslet, E. (1875). The Map of Europe by Treaty. London, Butterworths.
Noble, J., D. Simonis, et al. (1997). Spain: a Lonely Planet travel survival
kit. Hawthorn, Vic, Lonely Planet Publications.
Raton, P. (1958). “Les Enclaves.” Annuaire francais de Droit International no
vol. #: 186-95.
Robinson, G. W. S. (1959). “Exclaves.” Annals of the Association of American
Geographers 49(September): 283-95.
Sahlins, P. (1989). Boundaries, the making of France and Spain in the
Pyrenees.
Berkeley, University of california Press.
Special Correspondant in Llivia (1988). Meet a Eurospeck. The Economist.
London.
308: 48.
Wallace, A., D. Wallechinshy, et al. (1983). 9 Anomalies of Political
Geography. The People's Almanac Presents the Book of Lists 3. New York,
Morrow:
119-20.
Whittlesey, D. (1933). “Trans-Pyrenean Spain: The Vall D'Aran.” Scottish
Geographical Magazine 49: 217-28.
At 20:28 12/04/99 +0200, you wrote:
> Dear colleagues,
>
>About a couple of weeks ago I heard a very curious story in the news
>over the radio (in a national one). A very small village on the French
>Pyrenees has written several letters, one to the French President,
>another to the Spanish one, and a third one to the President of the
>Autonomous Community of Aragon (Spain). The main reason for this letter
>was to request the French Government to allow them to belong to Spain
>instead of France, due to the fact that they feel more Aragonese and
>would like to return to their previous position, before the Treaty of
>the Pyrenees in 1654. The name of the village was not very clear when
>they said it, but it sounded something like "Ain" or "Ailin".
>
>Has anybody heard anything on this? I would also like to know of any
>previous situation similar to this. Does anybody know?
>
>Sincerely,
>
>Deborah
>
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