France Fear The Vikings?

After 1,200 years since the Scandinavian longships first invaded Western Europe, France remains scared of Vikings.

17:30 18 June 2015

French academics and anti-racist campaigners have recently slammed a study of the DNA of a handful of rural Normans by a British academic team. They fear that the study can awaken racial antagonism and disturb the legally enforced notion that France is indivisible. 

 

“We fear that this will encourage the idea that there are true Normans and false Normans,” said Jacques Declosmenil, president of the Mouvement Contre le Racisme (movement against racism) in Manche, lower Normandy.

 

“When you see pictures in local papers of Viking warriors wielding their weapons under the headline ‘Have you got Viking blood?’, you can’t help being worried.”

 

Meanwhile, Richard Jones, head of the Leicester University team in France, said: “The objective is to explore the intensity of the Scandinavian colonisation of Cotentin in the 9th and 10th centuries. We also want to know whether the invaders stuck to themselves or intermarried with the local people.”

 

The team of researchers gathered saliva samples from a small number of people in the Cotentin Peninsula. Participants include male volunteers with a surname of Scandinavian origin and whose grandparents has all been born locally.