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Facebook deletes (and then restores) the French town of Bitche’s page

The north-eastern French town of Bitche had its official Facebook page removed without any explanation - although many have supposed the reason is its somewhat unfortunate name.

Published: 13 April 2021 10:35 CEST
Updated: 13 April 2021 11:55 CEST

Facebook deletes (and then restores) the French town of Bitche's page

Photo: Thimoty Keefe/Flickr

Local broadcaster Radio Mélodie reported that Facebook’s algorithm picked up Bitche as a crude insult rather than an actual town, automatically deleting the page on March 19th.

“We have signalled it, but for the moment the page remains invisible,” local authorities wrote in a new Facebook post, now under the name “Mairie 57230” – the town’s postcode.

“The appeal procedure can last several months,” they said.

However after widespread media coverage, Facebook on Tuesday reinstated the town’s page.

Bitche – pronounced ‘Bitch’ – is situated in the north east of France, near the German border, in an area known as Pays de Bitche (Bitche Country), or Bitscherland in German.

In French, the inhabitants of Bitche are referred to as bitchois.

To avoid risking seeing their own pages deleted, several towns in Pays de Bitche have reluctantly changed their own Facebook names.

“We wanted to explain to you the name change on our page,” the town of Rohrbach-lès-Bitche, now just Ville de Rohrbach, wrote on their official Facebook page.

“Far from denying the name of our beautiful village,” they wrote, “it is clear that Facebook seems to be hunting down the term associated with Rohrbach.

“We leave it up to you to imagine the reason.”

Bitche is a small town with some 5,000 inhabitants and a rich military history. It is most famous for the siege of Bitche during the Franco-Prussian war in the 1870s.

While it is far from the only French place with a name that has an unfortunate meaning to English-speakers, it is not the first time Bitche has been the source of controversy.

READ ALSO: The 12 worst places in France you could possibly live

Back in 1881, the United States ambassador took offence at the name of the square in Paris where the American embassy was seated: Place de Bitche, named to honour the town of Bitche’s wartime effort. The square was renamed Place des Etats-Unis.

Member comments

Anonymous - 13 April 2021 at 22:37 CEST

This news story is peak humor and has absolutely made my night, thank you!

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An old WW2 photo taken in the French port town of Le Havre.

An old WW2 photo taken in the French port town of Le Havre. It can be difficult to know what prepositions to use for places like this - so we have explained it for you. (Photo by AFP)

If you’re listening to French chat about any of those topics, at some point you’re likely to hear the names of Mans, Havre and Touquet bandied about.

And this is because French towns that have a ‘Le’ ‘La’ or ‘Les’ in the title lose them when you begin constructing sentences.

As a general rule, French town, commune and city names do not carry a gender.

So if you wanted to describe Paris as beautiful, you could write: Paris est belle or Paris est beau. It doesn’t matter what adjectival agreement you use.

For most towns and cities, you would use à to evoke movement to the place or explain that you are already there, and de to explain that you come from/are coming from that location:

Je vais à Marseille – I am going to Marseille

Je suis à Marseille – I am in Marseille

Je viens de Marseille – I come from Marseille

But a select few settlements in France do carry a ‘Le’, a ‘La’ or a ‘Les’ as part of their name.

In this case the preposition disappears when you begin formulating most sentences, and you structure the sentence as you would any other phrase with a ‘le’, ‘la’ or ‘les’ in it.

Masculine

Le is the most common preposition for two names (probably something to do with the patriarchy) with Le Havre, La Mans, Le Touquet and the town of Le Tampon on the French overseas territory of La Réunion (more on that later)

A good example of this is Le Havre, a city in northern France where former Prime Minister, Edouard Philippe, who is tipped to one day run for the French presidency, serves as mayor.

Edouard Philippe’s twitter profile describes him as the ‘Maire du Havre’, using a masculine preposition

Here we can see that his location is Le Havre, and his Twitter handle is Philippe_LH (for Le Havre) but when he comes to describe his job the Le disappears.

Because Le Havre is masculine, he describes himself as the Maire du Havre rather than the Maire de Havre (Anne Hidalgo, for example would describe herself as the Maire de Paris).

For place names with ‘Le’ in front of them, you should use prepositions like this:

Ja vais au Touquet – I am going to Le Touquet

Je suis au Touquet – I am in Le Touquet

Je viens du Touquet – I am from Le Touquet

Je parle du Touquet – I am talking about Le Touquet

Le Traité du Touquet – the Le Touquet Treaty

Feminine

Some towns carry ‘La’ as part of their name. La Rochelle, the scenic town on the west coast of France known for its great seafood and rugby team, is one such example.

In French ‘à la‘ or ‘de la‘ is allowed, while ‘à le‘ becomes au and ‘de le’ becomes du. So for ‘feminine’ towns such as this, you should use the following prepositions:

Je vais à La Rochelle – I am going to La Rochelle

Je viens de La Rochelle – I am coming from La Rochelle

Plural

And some places have ‘Les’ in front of their name, like Les Lilas, a commune in the suburbs of Paris. The name of this commune literally translates as ‘The Lilacs’ and was made famous by Serge Gainsbourg’s song Le Poinçonneur des Lilas, about a ticket puncher at the Metro station there.

When talking about a place with ‘Les’ as part of the name, you must use a plural preposition like so:

Je suis le poinçonneur des Lilas – I am the ticket puncher of Lilas

Je vais aux Lilas – I am going to Les Lilas

Il est né aux Lilas – He was born in Les Lilas

Islands

Islands follow more complicated rules.

If you are talking about going to one island in particular, you would use à or en. This has nothing to do with gender and is entirely randomised. For example:

Je vais à La Réunion – I am going to La Réunion

Je vais en Corse – I am going to Corsica

Generally speaking, when talking about one of the en islands, you would use the following structure to suggest movement from the place:

Je viens de Corse – I am coming from Corsica

For the à Islands, you would say:

Je viens de La Réunion – I am coming from La Réunion

When talking about territories composed of multiple islands, you should use aux.

Je vais aux Maldives – I am going to the Maldives.

No preposition needed

There are some phrases in French which don’t require any a preposition at all. This doesn’t change when dealing with ‘Le’ places, such as Le Mans – which is famous for its car-racing track and Motorcycle Grand Prix. Phrases that don’t need a preposition include:

Je visite Le Mans – I am visiting Le Mans

J’aime Le Mans – I like Le Mans

But for a preposition phrase, the town becomes simply Mans, as in Je vais au Mans.

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