The Republic of Macedonia in the French Press

In spite of its famous name, Macedonia is not well-known in France. Till 1991, very few persons even knew the existence of a Republic of Macedonia. The French Medias began to get interested in it with the Greek blocus of Macedonia. A lot of papers, comments, interviews tried then to explain the main lines of the country's situation but with a very light participation of experts or intellectuals. One can find in this paper the main lines of the French press on Macedonia from spring 1999 to September 2001. The French papers, as a whole, assimilating the "Macedonian" people to "Slaves", perhaps to make a clear difference when explaining the situation during the Kossovo crisis or later, during the crisis inside Macedonia, contributed to deny the existence of a "Macedonian" people. The FYROM name is just trapping the country in its past. Macedonians have the right to definite their own identity, not to ask their neighbours or members of the UE!