8 maps that explain France's north-south divide

Criticising people from the opposite side of the country is a bit of a national sport in France. After all, their food, weather, character and accent are not the same. What’s not to hate?

READ ALSO French regional stereotypes - is half the country really always drunk?

As with most stereotypes there is some truth to France’s regional idiosyncrasies, but none are really quite serious enough for a wall to be built slap bang in the middle of the Loire Valley just yet.

These entertaining and largely tongue-in-cheek maps explain some of the prejudices and relative truths behind the north-south divide. 

Weather

There’s probably no bigger gripe for southerners in the north than le climat de merde (shitty weather). Turn the tables and it’ll be northerners talking about the insufferable summer heat of the south east.

This Metéo France map showing the number of rainy days per year over each area of France proves that it can be pretty wet and cloudy up north (especially in Brittany and Grand Est) but it’s not as if the whole bottom half of the country is always sunny either.

Cooking

In France, the land of ‘haute-cuisine’, some regional rivalries over who has the best grub were bound to develop.

The snootiest food connoisseurs from either side of this fictional north-south border will happily mock the other one’s fixation on using either butter or olive oil for their cooking.

But although there is a preference for “huile d’olive” further south and “beurre” in the north, cooking with lard (saindoux) is actually popular across much of l’Héxagone.

Proportion of people who cook with butter (left) or oil (right) by French region
by u/holytriplem in MapPorn

Accent

That’s right, much the same as in every country with a bigger landmass than Luxembourg, France has different regional accents.

Southerners will whine about the incomprehensible ch'ti dialect of Nord-Pas-de-Calais whereas northerners will mock and pigeonhole every southern accent into one, while certain Parisians will claim to 'not have an accent'.

READ ALSO Why all the snobbery about regional accents in France?

There are of course many regional accents as this map depicts, but once again there’s not such an obvious north-south divide in the way people speak apart from with a handful of words.

Tous les accents de France sur une seule carte sonore, c’est juste pour vous et par ici : https://t.co/BbmO1vhWfu pic.twitter.com/eWQBR75agm

— CQFD (@CQFD_lyon1) November 29, 2017

Also, beware of too much mockery as glottophobie - discriminating against someone because of their accent - is illegal in France.

Money

Here’s another map that disproves an idle cliché: ‘the industrial north together with Paris are rich whereas the drought-hit, lazy south is poor'.

Comically titled “If France was a pizza” given INSEE’s mouthwatering yellow and red colour choice, the map shows the 2015 median income of French communes across the country.

The wealth distribution is far from being a north vs south divide - the French Riviera and large swathes of the east are as rich as Paris, and the post-industrial “rust-belt” of France’s far north has seen better times - but the wealth prejudice somehow prevails.

Map of France if it was a pizza pic.twitter.com/0EtM9J4JR6

— Terrible Maps (@TerribleMaps) October 19, 2017

Character

French people from the north have a reputation for being unfriendly introverts whereas southerners are known to be fun-loving and happier.

And of course there's Parisians, who everybody hates.

It’s fair to say that bad weather can certainly dampen people’s mood, but in reality it’s really down to the individual.

Except if you’re from Paris, in which case you’re just a snobbish and rude narcissist (this map would have us believe).

Carte de la France vue par les Parisiens. #TasPleureCommeLaZoneC pic.twitter.com/y5bEnedpmX

— SMS Drôles (@HumourSMS) March 3, 2014

Chocolate pastries

The pain au chocolat v chocolatine battle has been raging for centuries and essentially comes down to a geographical divide.

To be clear, we’re not talking about two different types of chocolate breakfast pastries, just the words used to refer to the same item.

In the south west of the country it's a chocolatine, in most of the rest of France it's a pain au chocolat - although there are some exceptions as this map reflects.

Why this raises pulses between French people we don’t know; maybe it’s the sugar rush.

Sport

France is a great sporting nation but rather than bask in their triumphs, some pigheaded supporters of the country’s two most popular sports - football and rugby - would rather have a go at each other.

You know the drill: “football is for hooligans”, “well at least I don’t have cauliflower ears”.

The stereotype says that rugby is only played in the south whereas football is just as big in the north, but as these oddly shaped maps of France suggest, it’s yet again not quite as simple as that. 

Rugby is most fervently supported in the southwest where to many it’s a religion (there’s even a chapel called ‘Notre Dame du Rugby’). Football is everywhere but definitely more prevalent in the north. And as the map showcases, there are other sports that are popular in France.

Stereotypes can be funny but are usually dumb

This rather unrefined map of French regional stereotypes is a great way to cap off this roundup of French clichés about northerners and southerners and their opinions about each other.

There are definitely nuanced differences between both sides, and there’s nothing wrong with a bit of friendly banter, as long as it doesn’t turn into bigotry.