French term (edited): En haut. En bas.

"en haut ----en bas" veut dire ici "en aval et en amont"

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Note added at 9 mins (2010-03-03 16:22:36 GMT)
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or "uphill and downhill"

French term (edited): en haut

In my region, le haut means more altitude. If the village is hilly (and most of them are) you'll talk about the people who live "en haut" and "en bas".

In the Doubs, where I live, there is the "haut Doubs" which is the section over 900 meters or so and the "bas". It's well know that the people in the "haut" are not at all like the people in the "bas". The "bas" can be either Montbéliard and the Protestant region with Peugeot being the biggest influence or Besançon, Catholic, University, etc. Pontarlier is the "haut" It's a border city with Switzerland and very conservative.

So I think it's more about the hills and relief in the village that has created this difference.

French term (edited): en haut

in plain view/on the surface the village is agricultural and traditional but not so obvious is that the villagers enjoy.....

I see your concern that it may describe a psychological state, which you may have gathered from the remaining text.

it might be useful to look for terms which might apply either way, physically as well as attitudinally/psychologically, and so a more basic approach might be helpful (my suggestion). Good luck on your translation

I ´d say

that is the idea I get.

My first thoughts basically agreeing with Ellen. In the village in the UK where I used to live we talked about people living at the top of the village (mainly council houses) and at the bottom (very middle-class)

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Note added at 20 hrs (2010-03-04 12:56:37 GMT)
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and yes, it was on a hill!

Maybe "village" refers not to the actual, physical village but to the people that compose it. I think it's quite common to talk about le village meaning its people.

So maybe en haut / en bas refers to socio-economic position. While peasant farmers might not be uppercrust (though certainly traditional), the owners of the agricultural land would be: right-wing, catholics. Whereas the lower echelons of society, the factory workers, would be left-wing unionists and/or free-thinkers.

This socio-economic split could well be geographical as well, with farmers on the plateau land, landowners and the well-to-do on the sides of the valley where the air is clean and dry and they get some sun, and industry down in the valley, by the river, where, for historical reasons associated with water mills driving machinery, factories might be located.

However, my native-French-speaking partner sees it as "visibly" and "deep-down".

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Note added at 1 hr (2010-03-03 17:49:57 GMT)
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Tracy-le-Mont is just over 2km from Tracy-le-Val, so they are unlikely to be regarded as a "common entity". There appears to be no river running through Tracy-le-Mont.

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Note added at 2 days5 hrs (2010-03-05 22:08:12 GMT)
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So "the people/villagers at the top" and "the people/villagers at the bottom" (without specifying "of what").

I was going to suggest "the Village People on top/underneath" but thought better of it ;-).

"le mont" meaning the hill, and "le val" meaning the valley, it seems obvious to me that it is a geographical distinction. The village being seperated into two parts, the one on the hill, "en haut", and the one at the river or valley level "en bas". No need for a big river to have "val" in a name, a stream would do.