The Occitan movement in Southern France should be studied in the light of a world-wide political reality of our days, the surfacing of ethnic minorities which are beginning to voice cultural and political demands in almost all large industrialized or developing countries. The first step for a minority group to come into existence is almost without exception to look back and discover or re-discover its own history. The Occitan group can claim for itself three unique historical and geographic features: (1) a fully developed literary language in the Middle Ages, Old Provencal; (2) the oldest European literature after the decline of the Greco-Roman civilization (The Troubadours); and (3) the fact that it is the largest minority group in France (10-13 million Frenchmen speak some form of Occitan). Teachers of French should update their civilization programs with regard to these minority activities in order to give an authentic account of contemporary France. An annotated bibliography of materials on the Occitan movement is included. (Author/CFM)