The term “ Province , provincial ” is strongly connoted in France, where its use is particularly frequent in Paris and raises on the whole of the Parisianisme. This direction is also used in Lima and Bucharest. The problem does not arise in these terms in Belgium or with the Canada, on the other hand the Italy knows a similar discrimination ( Claudio Sabelli Fioretti, It will era una Volta the provincia. Storia, tendenze, immagini E will cultura di a ex piccolo mondo. Milan, Sperling and Kupfer, 1991 ). Étymologiquement, the province is the country overcome (pro vincere) by the Roman Emperors, then under the old mode the provinces are military and tax districts.

The modern réinvention at the XIXe century of the province is justified by political reasons, France is still parcelled out and divided, should be strengthened the patriotic feeling. Consequently, capacity works to strengthen State centralizing which joins together the whole of the administrative system in the capital, which levels the cultural differences when he does not deny them (prohibition to teach the regional languages, for example) and which rewrites the history under the impulse of Michelet while endeavouring to find a continuity historical, sometimes artificial, Gallic ancestors until the birth of the fragile republic ( Bernard Poche, Mishaps of “laprovince” through the history, CNRS-CERAT, Grenoble ).

If the Concept of province were born and were justified in this dubious political context, today it lost any semantic relevance except qualifying in a pejorative way that which is not Parisian. If one removes this character perlocutoire to him, the term is very low in direction. The province is a negation of the cultural differences and even a geographical aberration. Indeed, of the expressions usually employed as “the charm of the province” or “provincial wisdom” informs us little and, especially, insinuate that art of living, the esthetic aspect or the culture of Bayonne are in any point identical to those of Strasbourg.

Road information which informs us of “important decelerations in the direction Paris-Province and Province-Province” is also low in geographical information since the direction Paris-Province can as well mean is, the west, the north or the south of Paris; as for the expression “Province-Province” it is an invention absurdity of which one would have the greatest evil to give a definition. In a more general way, the expression “in province” is unnecessarily redundant except indicating “the intentional state” of that which uses it (Searle, Austin).

For example, this foreword of the Sopha of Crébillon (Crébillon wire, Sopha , Paris, Crémille, 1970): novel was worth in Crébillon, wire of a tragic poet, to be exiled several years in province. One wonders about an exile which offers whole France, even the whole world, except Paris. Sometimes the use of the " term; province" tends towards the Oxymore.

The use of the term province, provincial informs to a certain extent about the intentions of the Locuteur, but to a certain extent only. Indeed, the terms are of an employment so frequent that there is semantic phenomenon of vulgarizing. Their egocentrée and pejorative connotation grows blurred by the practice and the frequency, following the example term “Nègre, négroïde” which crossed the 19th century without worrying. Those which employed this term to qualify certain African populations were not necessarily aware of its condescending connotation, humiliating and discriminatory. We are in a similar case of figure today with the province and the provincial one.

The Province fantasmée in the literature

The pallet of phantasm which France renamed in province in the literature generates is varied but one can nevertheless try a typology.

• presupposed the complex of inferiority of provincial which one clearly any more cannot at Honore de Balzac: “France with the nineteenth century is divided in two great zones: Paris and the province, the province jealous of Paris” in the MUSE of the Department , page 652, which continues as follows:

Some large, some beautiful, some strong that is at her beginning an young girl born in an unspecified department, if, like Dinah Piédefer, it Marie in province and if it remains there, it becomes soon woman of province. In spite of its stopped projects, the commonplaces, the mediocrity of the ideas, the unconcern of the toilet, the horticulture of vulgarities invade the sublime being hidden in this new heart, and all is known as, the beautiful plant decays. How would it be differently? As of their low age, the young girls of province see only people of province around them, they do not invent better, they have to choose only between mediocrities, the fathers of province marry their daughters only with boys of province; nobody with the idea to cross the races, the spirit necessarily debases himself; also, in much of cities, the intelligence it became as rare as blood is ugly there. The man there rabougrit under the two species, because it sinister idea of suitabilities of fortune dominates all matrimonial conventions there. People of talent the artists, the higher men, any cock with bright feathers flies away in Paris. Lower like woman, a woman of province is still lower by her mari.

• the silliness of the other, that which is not Parisian and which we have just met at Balzac. “Provincial: who left, is deprived of distinction, manner. ”, we says the Larousse XXe century. Also let us quote: “It is a simpleton who is fresh émoulu province” (Dancourt), given in example by the Petit Robert, “It was not any more this simple girl whose provincial education had narrowed the ideas” (Voltaire), “One will see clearly that you cried with the tragedy, which is a little provincial” (Genlis).

• the Abâtardissement , largely foreseen with Balzac, also let us quote “It had beautiful eyes for eyes of province” (Gresset) and “it Is nothing so pitiful in the world that the functions of journalist of province, condemned never not to write but vulgarities to bring itself to the level of its public. ” (Auguste Nefftzer).

• the mortal trouble : “Paris is a populated loneliness; a provincial town is a desert without loneliness. ” (François Mauriac), “In province, the rain becomes a distraction.” (Edmond and Jules de Goncourt), “the man is made for the woman. The woman is made for the man… especially in province, where there is no distraction. ” (Feydeau) or “There is something of terrible in these existences of province where nothing appears to change whatever the deep modifications of the heart. ” (Julien Green).