Brittany

1
Brittany

• Breizh

2
Nationalism in Brittany left and right,
cultural, political.
3
Territorial integrity

• One of the major complaints by all the Breton
  parties and movements has concerned the
  territorial integrity of Brittany.
• During the occupation 1940-44, the Petain
  government divided the historical Brittany into
  two parts.
• No French government has ever reunited these two
  regions into its original form.
• The old capital of Brittany Nantes is no longer
  in Brittany.

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The return of nationalism after WWII

• In the immediate aftermath of the war, nothing
  seems to have remained of the earlier nationalist
  ambitions.
• The mainstay of Breton culture was its
  traditionalist base, which was now collapsing
  under the weight of social change and reform as
  well as economic restructuring.
• As we have seen, political nationalism did not
  take root in the post-war period, but cultural
  versions of nationalism did.
• Although, the indifference of the State, and lack
  of interest of the population at large were
  serious obstacles.

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The return of nationalism after WWII

• In fact, within this domain, there were two
  conflicting groups
• Those who wanted to promote traditional culture
  in the way it had been pre-war (pardons,
  fest-noz)
• And those who wished to use traditional culture
  as a vehicle for promoting a sense of Breton
  nationalism.

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Traditional pardonreligious procession
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The return of nationalism after WWII

• As we have seen, the post-war period eventually
  saw the creation of several nationalist or
  quasi-nationalist movements in the political
  sphere, culminating in the late 60s and early 70s
  with the FLB.
• The rebirth of political nationalism in Brittany
  can be dated to the mid 50s with the return of
  Yann Fouéré.
• He instigated the movement known as the M.O.B.
• Yann Fouere (1910-2011) had been in exile in
  Ireland, and had recently been acquitted of
  charges made following the war.

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Yann Fouéré (1910-2011)
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The MOB

• Le Mouvement pour lOrganisation de la Bretagne
• 1957
• It was more of a movement than a political party.
• It stood for a Federalist France.
• Its membership was very diverse Gaullist,
  regionalist, nationalist.
• After 1964 it became more radicalised, after many
  younger members formed the UDB.
• Nations proletaires v nations bourgeoises

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Yann Foueres funeral 2011
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The return of nationalism after WWII

• MOB perhaps inevitably in the climate of the
  1950s seems in its heyday conservative and
  certainly not separatist.
• The emphasis was largely on institutional reforms
  within the French State rather than major social
  reforms.
• Its major mistake was not to align itself with
  the agricultural sector, where most of the
  political life of Brittany was centred.
• By 1964 however the movement had split into two
  factions.

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The Emsav

• The word Emsav is used in Brittany to refer to
  the various political and cultural movements that
  especially characterize the pre-war and post-war
  periods in Brittany.
• Much of the Emsavs activities in the 60s and 70s
  centred around music (fest-noz), dances, and
  language (learning Breton).
• Breton language magazines, journals (Al Liamm,
  Bleun Brug, Ar Falz).
• Ar Falz was anti-nationalist and pro-Republican.
• Per-Jakez Helias.

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Fest-Noz
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U.D.B.

• The Breton Democratic Union (Unvaniezh Demokratel
  Breizh, Union Démocratique Bretonne) is the main
  autonomist and regionalist party in Brittany
  (Bretagne administrée) and Loire-Atlantique.
• It advocates devolution for Brittany as well as
  the promotion of the Breton language and its
  associated culture.

15
UDB

• It was founded mainly by young people in 1964 who
  wanted a party that would be both Breton and
  socialist.
• Until the 1970s the party was on the extremes of
  the socialist range. Their analysis of Brittany
  was one that saw Brittany as an internal colony
  of France.
• They were however very critical of the FLB
  (1968-1972) describing the actions of the latter
  as adventurism.
• The party really grew in the 1970s, but at the
  same time they became more centrist in political
  terms.

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UDB

• By the end of the 1970s they moved noticeably
  further away from the Emsav with its
  traditionalism, and sought to find new members in
  the ranks of the traditional left.
• By allying themselves with socialists and
  communists, they managed to gain a few seats in
  town elections.
• In so doing the victory of the socialist Francois
  Mitterand in 1981 was politically a challenge for
  the UDB which had now less emphasis on its
  nationalist roots.
• In 1984, a faction left the party and formed
  Frankiz Breizh.

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UDB

• Despite this setback, the party revived by the
  end of the 80s.
• In the 1990s it really began to make some
  progress.
• In the regional elections it obtained 4 of the
  vote. (not much!)
• The UDB changed its ideology to one that
  emphasised Europe, the environment, and Brittany
  as well in an optimist way. Talk of Brittany as a
  colony went, and Brittany became for them a
  developing post-colonial people.

18
UDB

• By 2001, the party now had some 100 municipal
  councillors, often second choices using the
  French list system of voting.
• Given the political climate in the decades
  following the WWII, the UDB is considered a
  respectable party.
• The reaction of other Breton political and
  cultural formations to the UDB is often very
  critical.

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UDB

• In the regional elections held in 2004, the UDB
  gained three seats which was quite a
  breakthrough.
• In 2010 they won four seats as well in the
  Regional Council of Brittany.
• More on the Conseil regional de Bretagne later.
• That said, it should be noted that

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The parties in the CRB (2008-2010)
Party Party seats
Socialist Party 36
Union for a Popular Movement 14
Union for French Democracy 9
French Communist Party 7
The Greens 7
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Breton Democratic Union 4
Left Radical Party 2
Miscellaneous Left 2
Miscellaneous Left 1
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Direct Action the FLB- right then left

• Clandestine action was by no means new in
  Brittany.
• The Gwenn ha Du movement in the 1930s had caused
  a number of symbolic explosions to statues etc.
• The continual problem of fractured political
  groupings in Brittany led some to lose confidence
  in legal constitutional action (political
  parties) as means of liberating the Breton
  people.

EXTREMISM IN BRETON POLITICS
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The origins of the FLB

• Undoutedly the FLB as a Breton terrorist
  movement, had its origins in the M.O.B movement
  and grew out of the radicalization of that
  movement after the schism had divided it.
• The first bombings in the 1966-68 period were
  fairly amateurish (stolen explosives, private
  financing).
• In the first instance, the members of the FLB
  were radicalized rightwing nationalists, not
  unlike that of the pre-war Gwenn ha Du movement.

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Direct Action the FLB

• This development was accelerated by economic
  factors.
• The loss of many Breton-held companies.
• The deterioration of Breton culture and language
  (1970s)
• The growth of military installations in Brittany.
• This was interpreted as an increased state
  intervention into Breton life.
• The sense that Breittany was fragmented.

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Direct Action the FLB

• Action by the FLB began in 1966. Molotov
  cocktails were thrown at the sous-prefecture of
  Saint-Nazaire, French flags were burnt.
• The culprits were arrested and given a prison
  sentence.
• In the same year, a fire bomb was set off in the
  tax-offices of Saint-Brieuc. In a communique, the
  FLB referred to the French occupying forces.

25
Direct Action the FLB

• An increase in the number of bombings during
  1967.
• They released ther communiques from an office in
  Dublin through the intermediary of the National
  Committee of Free Brittany.
• 1968 saw a an increase in violence. Prefertures,
  tax-offices are damaged in bomb attacks.
• Large amounts of explosives were stolen from the
  army in early 1968.

26
Direct Action the FLB

• In a reference clearly inspired by the existence
  of the IRA, those involved in the FLB describe
  themselves as being part of the (either)
  Republican (or) Revolutionary Breton Army.
• The destruction of the police headquarters in
  Saint-Brieuc meant that the FLB now reached the
  international news.
• The Bretons themselves seem not to have greeted
  these events with hostility.
• This was also the period of the May
  demonstrations in Paris in 1968.

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Direct Action the FLB

• The May 1968 events in Paris and elsewhere in the
  country practically brought France to a
  standstill.
• In the elections held in France soon afterwards,
  the FLB and ARB demanded the full control of
  their affairs for the Breton people.
• They described themselves as nationalists,
  socialists, who saw the Bretons as a colonised
  people.
• They rejected state controlled socialism, and
  regarded Breton socialists who were not
  pro-independence as traitors and hypocrites.

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Direct Action the FLB

• A vast wave of arrests followed, and some fifty
  members of the FLB were charged and expected to
  go on trial.
• Those accused came from all walks of life
  (students, managers, priests, workers, artists)
• Further arrests took place in anticipation of the
  visit of the French president General De Gaulle.
• He ordered the cessation of arrests (especially
  of priests).

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Direct Action the FLB

• He had come to Brittany to announce the holding
  of a special referendum on the issue of regional
  reform.
• Many of the prisoners held in prison in Paris go
  on hunger strike to obtain the status of
  political prisoners.
• Many of those held in Paris were eventually
  released.
• The referendum was a failure, and led to the
  depart of General De Gaulle.

30
Direct Action the FLB

• With the release of many of the presumed members
  of the FLB, only 16 remained in detention.
• Demands were made for an immediate amnisty for
  those remaining, as well as the administrative
  reunification of Brittany. And the creation of a
  regional Assembly. However, the victory of the
  Gaulliste candidate Georges Pompidou meant that
  these ideas would not see the light of day.
• This regional assembly with restricted powers
  would only come into being in 1998.

31
Direct Action the FLB

• One important Breton politician R.Pleven became
  the minister for justice.
• There was a realization that in Brittany there
  had been a massive swing away from the post-war
  mindset.
• The government decided to abandon the prosecution
  against the remaining FLB detainees, together
  with an amnesty.
• That way, they avoided the holding of a massively
  politicized trial. (Brittany versus the French
  State).

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Direct Action the FLB

• It is interesting that public opinion had in
  large measure become favorable towards those held
  in prison.
• Even the main French political parties had
  evolved in the way they described the FLB
• terrorists of doubtful origin, individuals
  receiving their orders from abroad, good lads
  who have become disappointed, sincere
  militants.
• By the middle of the 1970s there were no longer a
  force to be reckoned with.

33
Yann-Kel Kernalegen 1976

• http//www.youtube.com/watch?vfG-W_HgEhZofeature
  related

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The change of ideology in the FLB

• This latent conservatism was replaced by a new
  generation of FLB members in the early 70s who
  were clearly more socialist, even radically.
• The conflict with the French State now was
  redefined in terms of a combat against capitalism
  (banks, large companies).
• But by the mid 70s, there was even a more away
  from such symbolic direct action, inspired as it
  was by the Irish example (IRA), and now looked
  towards implanting more successfully breton
  nationalism in the local population.

35
The change of ideology in the FLB

• In this sense the FLB moved from the Irish
  example to the lessons given by Basque
  Nationalism.
• Here the emphasis was on generating a movement of
  collective resistance against the State, going
  beyond the military struggle but rather
  campaigning on various fronts (political,
  military, cultural and social).
• This saw the beginnings of the ARB (Armée
  révolutionnaire bretonne) which committed some
  100 bomb attacks in the 1970s., including one in
  the Chateau of Versailles in Paris.

36
FLB on uTube

• http//www.youtube.com/watch?vWQlv8tWANJ4

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The FLB/ARB

• By 1978, it had become clear that the movement
  had become further radicalized.
• It now combined separatist nationalism with
  socialism with a Breton face. It defended the
  revolutionary armed struggle across the world,
  it fought imperialist oppression, and the
  exploitation of Brittany and the dismantlement of
  Breton culture (and language).

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The FLB/ARB explosion in the Chateau de Versailles

• http//www.dailymotion.com/video/x7fviv_flb-arb-19
  78-tarzherezh-kastell-ver_news

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The aftermath of the FLB

• As a movement which drew enormous attention in
  Brittany and France, its lasting impact on the
  working classes in Brittany was limited and
  largely symbolic.
• Nationalism remained relatively marginalized.
• It was not negligeable however, since at least
  part of its ideology was accepted by the
  nationalist groupings and the Emsav.
• The reaction of the population was not
  necessarily hostile, but its support was patchy.
• By the beginning of the 1980s, the FLB was a
  spent force with the arrival of a leftist
  government in Paris. (Mitterand).

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The FLB still active?

•  Le Front de libération de la Bretagne se
  réveille. 
• Headline in the French newspaper Libération 5
  November 2011.

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Adsav

• http//www.adsav.org/
• http//www.youtube.com/watch?v_W6UCnOmUxYfeature
  related
• The return of the Breton Blackshirts?

42
Adsav

• Adsav (renewal) was created in January 2000.
• One of their first acts was to bombard towns and
  villages with posters with slogans in Breton and
  French saying Brittany for the Bretons,
  Brittany First.
• They developed an extreme right discourse, and
  allied themselves with similar movements in other
  parts of Europe.
• They do however reject the French extreme right
  (FN).
• One idea taken from these other extremist
  movements is that the problems faced by Brittany
  will only be resolved after an ethnic war in
  Europe.