I find this position sort of idealistic (in the philosophical sense). Political parties grow out of movements and ideological currents that actually exist on the ground. Starting a political party doesn't by itself achieve anything if there's no-one to vote for you. There's all sorts of irrelevant Cantabrian, Murcian, Extremaduran, etc. regionalist parties in Spain but that hasn't changed anything about the language policy of these regions or the identity of the average person there.
You could also take a look at the political situation in Asturias, where regionalist and nationalist parties are only a step above the Murcian and Cantabrian ones, but there's a tight-knight and vigorous activist sphere that has pushed the "Spanish" parties towards legislating in favour of the use of Asturian (although they still haven't got the symbolic "oficialidá" they're after, Asturleonese has a much stronger presence in the administrative sphere and in education than in Portuguese-adminstered Miranda, where they do use the word "official").
I agree with what you're saying. If there's no Gascon party it's because there's no popular groundswell or grassroots support for it, and if there's little support or consciousness of even a basic regional identity then there's no point accusing them of having failed to create a political party but, they've had decades now to forment such a popular consciousness, the basis for any political initiative. Occitanists at least have tried to create an 'Occitan' identity, even if it was in a somewhat artificial manner across the whole territory. And even if they haven't succeeded completely even among Occitan speakers, let alone among French monolinguals.
I mentioned the possibility of pressuring the major mainstream parties to support Gascon. In the north Basque Country, non Basque nationalist parties at least have to pay lip service to Basque in order to siphon off voters or keep them happy. In Corsica the Corsican nationalists are the force to be reckoned with. Of course the social conditions in these places are not the same, but theoretically France's political structure doesn't prevent the creation of strong regionalist parties (even if the extent of their political powers pales in comparison to the autonomous communities in Spain).
The case you cite of the mainstream parties in Asturias is such a clear example of what I wish had happened. Getting to this point where officiality is a serious discussion among mainstream Asturian parties took decades of work. And while it's true that Cantabrian nationalist/regionalist political parties have failed to advance the linguistic cause, the success of the Partido Regionalista de Cantabria has at least put forward the agenda of their autonomous community first and foremost. After all, for a linguistic programme to be successful there needs to be social and economic conditions for that to be possible (e.g. maybe Cantabrians need to think of themselves as Cantabrians, not just Spaniards who speak funny, before they can be convinced to think about their linguistic situation).
I agree.To that extent I'd say it's important to work from extant identities, but I wouldn't proscribe any sort of "pan-regional" or "ethnolinguistic" consciousness building either. I think allowing for composite, pluralistic, and fluid identities (where "Gascon" and "Occitan" don't necessarily need to contradict or compete with each other) would be ideal.
Let me sidetrack. Ideally we'd free ourselves from the Manichean dichotomy of a fixed identity, but insofar as one is allowed to live and construct their composite and plural identities.
I make a sharp distinction between Basque and Spanish/French because I subscribe to the Basque nationalist ideology that separates the two neatly, but the Basque nationalist ideology is in part a reactionary movement that feeds from other nationalist ideologies that demand total subscription to one identity or the other. In a world where the Spanish/French say that you are either Basque OR Spanish/French, and don't give you the means to really live a shared identity in equal terms, it's no wonder that people end up choosing the first. If it was possible to really be Spanish and French but also live freely in the Basque language for example, I expect the Basque nationalist ideology to lose a significant part of its support.
In other words if the Spanish right wing really wanted to destroy Basque independence movement, they would be doing everything possible to support the Basque language, not cozying up with the far right because Spanish is supposedly an oppressed language.
But in the end, I acknowledge this is still the Titanic deck problem: the language (and other aspects of the question) were maybe just too far gone for anything to succeed.
Is there really nothing they (Gascon activists, the broader Occitanist community, the average speaker) could do to save their language? Is that it? Are they doomed to a slow extinction? There's really nothing they can do now? I don't mean this as a rhetorical question guyome, I am desperate to find any source of light. Despite the mistakes of the past, what can they do now, realistically?