Catalans in this part of France became subjects of King Louis XIV of France under a 1659 peace treaty that enlarged the country and created a new border with Spain along the Pyrenees.

The latest redrawing of France’s administrative map, and the dispute it has caused here, coincide with an unrelated territorial conflict on the southern side of the Pyrenees over whether the Catalan regional government, based in Barcelona, can split from Spain.

Most people here, however, define their Catalan identity as cultural rather than political. For instance, Ms. Andolfo, the pastry shop owner, while feeling sympathy for the Catalans who want to separate from Spain, expressed no desire to see French Catalans break away from France.

Ms. Andolfo understands the Catalan language but doesn’t speak it, even though some in her family fled Catalonia for France in 1939. They were among the nearly 500,000 Spaniards escaping Gen. Francisco Franco, who rose to power after Spain’s civil war.

“My grandmother never spoke to me in Catalan because she always kept her fear of Franco, and believed that French was my future, the way for me to find a job,” Ms. Andolfo said. Still, Ms. Andolfo put her own daughter in a bilingual school to learn French and Catalan.