When Julius Caesar and his Roman legions conquered the lands now known as France, Belgium and Switzerland, resistance was led by an indomitable Gaulish warrior reports The Times.
The real-life Asterix, the hero of the French comics, was Vercingétorix, chief of the Arverni tribe, who united the Gauls and won a spectacular victory over Caesar at the Battle of Gergovia in 52 BC. Today, however, there is little sense of unity following a decision by President Macron’s government to list the battleground in the Auvergne area of central France as a heritage site.
Critics say his ministers have been hoodwinked by an “archaeological fraud” into listing the wrong site. They claim that the real battleground is about to be covered in solar panels.
The government’s backers insist that it has got the right site and denounce claims to the contrary as an “intolerable” attack on science by archaeological conspiracy theorists.
The debate is particularly heated because Laurent Wauquiez, the centre-right leader of the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes regional council, plans a 40-million-euro Museum of Gaulish Civilisation on the listed site. Wauquiez, 47, who has ambitions to succeed Macron as president, believes that his museum will help to reinforce patriotic sentiment at a time when it is threatened by political correctness, cancel culture and immigration.
The most detailed account of the Battle of Gergovia comes from Caesar himself, who wrote about it in The Conquest of Gaul, his book about his triumphant campaign. About 36,000 Romans were repelled by an even greater force led by Vercingétorix to offer the Gauls their finest moment. Caesar gained revenge at the Battle of Alésia a few months later to take control of Gaul.