The nation of Groland cannot be found on a normal map. No other countries recognize it. It has no seat in the United Nations, no place in NATO, no representative at the World Bank.
Yet untold thousands carry Grolandais passports and consider themselves “citizens.”
Cars in places as diverse as France, Australia, the United States and Thailand bear the white, oval GRD stickers of Groland.
The soccer team is made up of real players. And 30,000 real people attended the Groland Film Festival last year.
In truth, Groland exists only on a satirical French television show and in the hearts of Frenchmen and other devotees of the ridiculous around the world. But this imaginary country has spawned a very real phenomenon.
Groland was created 15 years ago as a small part of a comedy program. It grew into its own show. Every Saturday evening in France, people tune in the Canal Plus television channel to watch “7 Days in Groland,” a news magazine on the events of past week in the fictional country.
The main newscaster, Jules-Edouard Moustic, who appears on air wearing a huge, black, plastic toupee, said the set was originally modeled after CNN’s, with Barbie dolls in the background as the news staff. Fox News inspired the content, he said.
Across-the-board fun
Everything and everyone is fair game for satire — from sports to culture to politics, from President Bush to French President Jacques Chirac and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
So where, exactly, is Groland? In an interview, Moustic, whose real name is Christian Borde, grabbed a piece of paper and drew an amorphous blob.
“It’s in the form of a cow’s udder,” he explained. All the other countries radiate outward like the spokes of a wheel. Thus Groland shares a border with every nation in the world.
Beyond the TV screen, people began pledging allegiance to Groland. A professional motocross racer named Serge Nuques became a citizen and received a “knighthood,” dubbed Ze Chevalier.
The American filmmaker Michael Moore is a citizen, as are the anti-globalization farmer Jose Bove, the actor Gerard Depardieu and other notables.
Citizens are issued passports. The requirements are not complex.
“It’s enough to smoke, to drink and to have yellow teeth,” Moustic said.
To be a citizen of Groland, one must only abandon one’s fear of being ridiculous, Nuques said.
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There is a refreshing openness about Groland’s citizens, as well.
“When we win the Tour de France,” Nuques said, “we’ll just say we won because we use drugs.”
About three years ago, the soccer team of Louvigny, a real town of 3,000 people in Normandy, was looking for a sponsor.
“We asked Groland,” recalled Patrick LeDoux, the town’s mayor. “Groland replied, ‘We don’t have a football team!’ “
So the deal was done. The Louvigny team, which the mayor acknowledges is only of average skill, now competes wearing the Groland insignia. The real town has an official sister-city relationship with the imaginary place.
Film festival
In 2005, Groland organized its first film festival, in the northern seaside resort town of Quend-Plage-les-Pins. Ten thousand people showed up.
The second festival took place last fall, and 30,000 people came.
“We were very surprised,” said Raymond Defosse, the organizer.
The festival features movies that have not yet been distributed, and has had filmmakers and actors as guests — notably Terry Jones of the British comedy troupe Monty Python, who is a “spiritual father” to the Grolandais people, Defosse said.
But, unlike more glamorous festivals, the Groland version offers most events for free, charges no more than 5 euros (about $6.80) per movie, and does not separate the artists and stars from the hoi polloi.
“It’s totally the opposite of Cannes,” Defosse said.
Some time ago, staff at Canal Plus began asking for the GRD automobile stickers. The demand spread to the public and then grew beyond France; Groland now issues 2,000 stickers per month.
There is, Defosse said, something particularly French about this kind of satire, with its desire to mock the French themselves along with everyone else in the world.
What is the source of Groland’s broad appeal? Why has it transcended television to become something real — or, at any rate, partly real?
“We can make fun of everything and everybody,” said Ze Chevalier. “It’s total freedom.”