Quote: "Tuesday, 3 June 2014
Time for solidarity with Brittany NOW!
However, the debate is not over. Apart from numerous negative economic
side effects the move will act to undermine the growth of Breton-medium
education in Loire Atlantique.
Breton leader Christian Troadec said: "This
is a new blow to the reunification of Brittany.. political courage
would have been, under the land reform, to have an immediate end to this
separation decided by the Vichy regime and Marshal Petain. Nantes in
Brittany... has been claimed and reaffirmed by the Bretons in the five
departments at every visit, every survey!
"The
future of Britain has again been decided by technocrats in an office in
Paris... Paris has once again butchered Brittany.. With 5 departments,
we would have counted more than 4.5 million people and could talk to
other European states or countries like Scotland, Catalonia, the German
landers ... Our economic development capacity would have seen a tenfold
increase. Our jobs and our standard of living too."
To help oppose the move and to support reunification please write asap to Mr Hollande: http://www.elysee.fr/ecrire-au-president-de-la-republique/
You can sign the petition on the Bretagne Réunie website here: http://www.bretagne-reunie.org/soutenir/signez-la-charte/
Equally you can contact the collective 44=BZH and ask how you can help: http://44breizh.com/
...and from the same site....
Quote: "
Independence Cymru: The Case for Brittany
Independence Cymru: The Case for Brittany
: Independence and national identity are emotive issues, but the
arguments in favour of a greater level of autonomy for Brittany are very
strong and rest upon historical, geographic, cultural, and economic
considerations.
Economic Arguments
The myth that has been taught to
schoolchildren for the past one hundred years is that Brittany is an
intrinsically poor country, hampered by poor soil and bad weather. The
real truth, however, is that for most of its history Brittany has been
extremely prosperous, and that it only started to go into economic
decline once it became united with France.
During the Middle Ages Brittany
was one of the wealthiest areas of Europe: the interior was home to a
thriving textile industry, and the coastal areas maintained a merchant
fleet that was one of the most successful of the age, trading salt,
textiles, fish and agricultural products across Northern Europe and down
to Spain and Portugal.
The wealth accumulated by these
activities attracted the jealousy of neighbouring countries, which is
the reason why the King of France forced Anne of Brittany to marry him
in 1491, a marriage which eventually led to a union of the two states.
Brittany remained semi-autonomous and reasonably prosperous until the
Revolution, when it was finally amalgamated into the rest of France. The
next hundred years of its history were marked by famines and widespread
destitution – giving rise to the short-sighted idea that Brittany has
always been impoverished.
Although outwardly prosperous,
the modern Breton economy is now dependent on agricultural subsidies and
funding from central government – which, in economic terms, is
disastrous.
A clear argument can be made
that Brittany would be more successful in diversifying its economy and
creating wealth, if its people had a greater level of control over their
own affairs.
Cultural Arguments
The Breton language has survived
to the present time; there is still a tradition of Breton music; and
there is a wealth of stories and traditions which are specific to this
part of the world. These are the sorts of cultural ingredients which are
required to support the sense of identity and common purpose required
for a successful unit of government. The idea of an autonomous Brittany
makes a lot more sense than many other administrative regions that have
been created in Europe and around the world in recent times.
Geographical Arguments
People disagree as to where the
eastern border of Brittany ought to lie – for most of the past thousand
years Nantes and the ‘Loire Atlantique’ have been part of Brittany – but
even a cursory glance of a map of Europe marks the Breton peninsular
out as a distinctive geographical area, easily distinguished from the
rest of France. Many aspects of life in Brittany are dictated by the
weather and the sea, which makes it have more in common with places such
as Scotland, Ireland, Wales and Cornwall than with mainland Europe.
Historical Arguments
It is, perhaps, history that provides the strongest reasons in favour of a change in the way that Brittany governs itself.
Over the years the people of
this region have had many different relationships with the rest of
Europe, and there is no reason to suppose that the present arrangement
should be regarded as permanent.
In ‘pre-historical’ times,
Brittany was inhabited by people about whom we know very little except
that they erected the menhirs, dolmens, and covered alleyways that are
so common in the Breton countryside. These monuments are quite distinct
from remains found in other parts of mainland Europe, but do bear a
resemblance to sites in the UK, in India, and in China. This would
suggest that, in those days, Brittany was an outward-looking country,
more closely allied to countries across the ocean than to its neighbours
on the mainland.
Immediately prior to the Roman
occupation, Brittany was inhabited by Gallic tribes, each of which was
autonomous but loosely linked to other Gallic people by Druids who
travelled freely throughout France, Britain, Belgium, Switzerland and
northern Italy. The Druids did not constitute a form of government, (or a
religion in today’s sense of the word) but do seem to have provided
training and spiritual guidance which knitted the Gauls together into a
unified nation: it seems unlikely that a tribal chief could have
maintained power without the support of the Druids.
Julius Caesar ruthlessly
suppressed this civilisation – in modern parlance his ‘campaigns’ would
be termed genocide – and Brittany, along with the rest of Gaul, was
incorporated into the Roman Empire.
All sense of self-determination
was lost over the course of the next four centuries, and, when the
Western Empire finally collapsed, the people living in this area had no
more idea of how to govern themselves than anyone else in Rome’s former
dominions.
But, whereas most of the
continent was overrun by tribes from the east (Visigoths, Ostragoths,
Huns, Franks, etc.) something unusual happened in Brittany. The Romans
had left Britain a few years previously, and it had been settled by
people from Saxony: the Saxons. For a time, harmony was established
between the native Celts and the newcomers and, consequently, Britain
could enjoy a time of peace and prosperity just as chaos was engulfing
the rest of Europe. (It is to this period that the legends of King
Arthur and Merlin are often dated.)
‘Saints’, or wise men, crossed
over from Britain to Brittany and set up sanctuaries in which they
taught and helped the local people. The names of some of these men have
become legendary and include the ‘Seven Founding Saints’ of Brittany –
Malo, Samson, Brieuc, Tugdual, Pol Aurélien, Corentin and Patern.
Towns built up around where they
settled (St Brieuc, St Pol de Leon, St Malo, etc.), composed of local
people, plus Britons who came to join them. It is only since this time
that this region has been known as Brittany and that its people have
spoken Breton. It would seem that it is to these founding saints that
Brittany owes its traditional love of freedom and independence: Brittany
was the only part of modern France which did not fall under the control
of Charlemagne and the Holy Roman Empire, and subsequently Brittany
succeeded in resisting a Norman invasion of the type that overwhelmed
Britain.
For several centuries Brittany
had the status of an independent Duchy, recognised by the Pope in Rome
but not allied to any particular kingdom. This independence was lost
when Brittany was united with France in 1532. Some modern historians
blame this union on the greed of Breton nobles who preferred to accept
gifts from the French court than to defending their independence; others
have maintained that some form of union was inevitable given the state
of European politics at the time. Whatever the case, the young heiress
to the Duchy, Anne of Brittany, found herself helpless and besieged by a
French army in Rennes and was forced to agree to marry the French king,
which signalled the end of Breton independence.
Brittany retained separate
institutions (in much the same way as Scotland retained its own legal
system after it was united with England), but these were swept away in
the French Revolution. Since then Brittany has, administratively, simply
been part of France.
The late 1800s and early 1900s
were a difficult time for Brittany because the government in Paris had
little understanding of the region and no empathy with its history and
culture: a legacy with which people are still trying to come to terms
today.
The Future
The arguments in favour of
Breton devolution are so overwhelming that it is almost inevitable that
the region will acquire a greater level of control over it own affairs
at some point in the future. The question is when and in what form? Many
people are fearful of the phrase ‘Breton independence’ because it
conjures up an image of militancy, but, if it is true that Brittany does
need a greater degree of autonomy before it can move forward, then it
would be those people who defend the status quo that posed the greatest
threat to its future."
Quote: "Yann Fouéré: Breton militant and European federalist*
The crash came in 1945 when he had to leave Brittany in a
hurry, first for Wales and then Ireland, to escape a sentence of 20
years' hard labour handed down for his part in the Emsav (as the Breton
movement is known).
He was accused of collaboration with the Germans when all he had done was take part in the activities of Breton cultural circles in Paris. Before the war, however, he had been one of the founders of Ar Brezhoneg er Skol, a society for the teaching of Breton and Breton history, and Vice-President of L'Union Régionale Bretonne. He also launched, in 1942, two newspapers, La Bretagne and La Dépêche de Brest, in which he argued for a greater degree of autonomy for Brittany.
It was this latter activity, partly funded by the collaborationist Vichy regime, that was held against him: to have questioned the concept of the Republic as "une et indivisible" was enough to condemn him. He was tarred with the same brush as nationalist leaders who had actively collaborated with the Nazis and who, as the Allies advanced, had returned with them to Germany.
In Wales, where he assumed the alias Dr Moger, suggested by his wife's maiden name, he was given refuge at the home of Gwynfor Evans, the leader of Plaid Cymru. After being deprived of his job as a French tutor at University College, Swansea, and at a Catholic College in Llandeilo, he moved to Ireland to avoid arrest, and there settled with his wife and young children, assuming the name Sean Mauger. In Connemara he set up a successful lobster farm, and continued writing, editing and organising for the Breton cause. The French Government exonerated him of all charges in 1958, after which he was allowed to return to Brittany.
A prolific writer, he wrote an influential book, L'Europe aux Cents Drapeaux (1968), translated as Towards a Federal Europe: Nations or States? (1980). He argued eloquently in favour of "a third Europe" or "a Europe of the peoples", in which Bretons, Basques, Catalans, Occitans, Galicians, Flemings, Frisians, Scots and Welsh would be among the minorities granted self-determination in a federal Europe.
Jean-Adolphe Fouéré, as he was known to the French civil state, was born in 1910 at Aignon, in Gascony, the son of a Breton senior civil servant. He was educated in St Brieuc and the Lycée Montaigne and Lycée Louis-le-Grand, two of the best secondary schools in Paris, later taking degrees in Law, the Humanities and Political Science at the Sorbonne. His passion for all things Breton was awakened when, as a schoolboy, he read Breiz Atao ("Brittany for ever"), the newspaper of the Parti National Breton which commanded the support of many nationalists and was later to be accused of collaboration. He followed his father into the Ministry of the Interior but, with his political opinions constrained, soon opted for the life of a journalist in Brittany.
After the war hewas Secretary General of the Comité Consultatif de Bretagne and edited its newspaper, La Bretagne, which later became L'Avenir de la Bretagne, the organ of the Mouvement pour l'Organisation de la Bretagne (MOB). I first met him in 1961 shortly after he had co-founded the Breton branch of the Celtic League. Innocuous though this initiative was, he still had a reputation as a militant and, in the eyes of the authorities, he was a dangerous separatist. In October 1975, together with some 50 others, he was arrested on suspicion of involvement in preparations by the Front de Libération de la Bretagne (FLB) for a bombing campaign against building nuclear power stations in Brittany. He spent 105 days in La Santé prison in Paris but was released under a general amnesty.
In 1972 he founded Strollad ar Vro (SAV) and in 1981 led the formation of Parti pour l'Organisation d'une Bretagne Libre (POBL), both groups on the right of the political spectrum, neither of which met with any electoral success. His autobiography, one of a dozen books he wrote over the years, appeared in two parts: La Patrie Interdite in 1987 and La Maison de Connemara in 1995. But his most important initiative was the creation in 1999 of Institut de Documentation Bretonne et Européenne, which now houses his invaluable archive of material relating to the history and social life of Brittany. In the absence of a Breton national library it will serve as his monument.
Yann Fouéré (Jean-Adolphe Fouéré), Breton activist and European federalist: born Aignan, Gers, France 26 July 1910; married 1939 Marie-Magdeleine Mauger (two sons, three daughters); died Saint Brieuc, Brittany 21 October 2011." Go to: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/yann-four-breton-militant-and-european-federalist-6261734.html
* How ironic now it's "The Feds" we've got to worry about!
He was accused of collaboration with the Germans when all he had done was take part in the activities of Breton cultural circles in Paris. Before the war, however, he had been one of the founders of Ar Brezhoneg er Skol, a society for the teaching of Breton and Breton history, and Vice-President of L'Union Régionale Bretonne. He also launched, in 1942, two newspapers, La Bretagne and La Dépêche de Brest, in which he argued for a greater degree of autonomy for Brittany.
It was this latter activity, partly funded by the collaborationist Vichy regime, that was held against him: to have questioned the concept of the Republic as "une et indivisible" was enough to condemn him. He was tarred with the same brush as nationalist leaders who had actively collaborated with the Nazis and who, as the Allies advanced, had returned with them to Germany.
In Wales, where he assumed the alias Dr Moger, suggested by his wife's maiden name, he was given refuge at the home of Gwynfor Evans, the leader of Plaid Cymru. After being deprived of his job as a French tutor at University College, Swansea, and at a Catholic College in Llandeilo, he moved to Ireland to avoid arrest, and there settled with his wife and young children, assuming the name Sean Mauger. In Connemara he set up a successful lobster farm, and continued writing, editing and organising for the Breton cause. The French Government exonerated him of all charges in 1958, after which he was allowed to return to Brittany.
A prolific writer, he wrote an influential book, L'Europe aux Cents Drapeaux (1968), translated as Towards a Federal Europe: Nations or States? (1980). He argued eloquently in favour of "a third Europe" or "a Europe of the peoples", in which Bretons, Basques, Catalans, Occitans, Galicians, Flemings, Frisians, Scots and Welsh would be among the minorities granted self-determination in a federal Europe.
Jean-Adolphe Fouéré, as he was known to the French civil state, was born in 1910 at Aignon, in Gascony, the son of a Breton senior civil servant. He was educated in St Brieuc and the Lycée Montaigne and Lycée Louis-le-Grand, two of the best secondary schools in Paris, later taking degrees in Law, the Humanities and Political Science at the Sorbonne. His passion for all things Breton was awakened when, as a schoolboy, he read Breiz Atao ("Brittany for ever"), the newspaper of the Parti National Breton which commanded the support of many nationalists and was later to be accused of collaboration. He followed his father into the Ministry of the Interior but, with his political opinions constrained, soon opted for the life of a journalist in Brittany.
After the war hewas Secretary General of the Comité Consultatif de Bretagne and edited its newspaper, La Bretagne, which later became L'Avenir de la Bretagne, the organ of the Mouvement pour l'Organisation de la Bretagne (MOB). I first met him in 1961 shortly after he had co-founded the Breton branch of the Celtic League. Innocuous though this initiative was, he still had a reputation as a militant and, in the eyes of the authorities, he was a dangerous separatist. In October 1975, together with some 50 others, he was arrested on suspicion of involvement in preparations by the Front de Libération de la Bretagne (FLB) for a bombing campaign against building nuclear power stations in Brittany. He spent 105 days in La Santé prison in Paris but was released under a general amnesty.
In 1972 he founded Strollad ar Vro (SAV) and in 1981 led the formation of Parti pour l'Organisation d'une Bretagne Libre (POBL), both groups on the right of the political spectrum, neither of which met with any electoral success. His autobiography, one of a dozen books he wrote over the years, appeared in two parts: La Patrie Interdite in 1987 and La Maison de Connemara in 1995. But his most important initiative was the creation in 1999 of Institut de Documentation Bretonne et Européenne, which now houses his invaluable archive of material relating to the history and social life of Brittany. In the absence of a Breton national library it will serve as his monument.
Yann Fouéré (Jean-Adolphe Fouéré), Breton activist and European federalist: born Aignan, Gers, France 26 July 1910; married 1939 Marie-Magdeleine Mauger (two sons, three daughters); died Saint Brieuc, Brittany 21 October 2011." Go to: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/yann-four-breton-militant-and-european-federalist-6261734.html
* How ironic now it's "The Feds" we've got to worry about!
Quote: "
Also See: "I Say Again, you are no Parliament!" Go to: http://gkhales.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/i-say-again-this-is-no-parliament.html
The Innocent Suffer..RIP Laurence Turbec 28 Years Old
Why independence ?
With the passing of years, we largely showed that our combat is firstly that of our Breton compatriots which fight in their companies for their employment and justice social, which mobilize for development economic of our country with service of all and in respect of our inheritance natural, which fights for the defense of our language and our culture, which militate with the daily newspaper for the right to live decently on their premises, in Brittany. We always indicated our adversaries: the French State centralizer and denier of the People and the capitalist system with its misadventures productivist néo-liberals.
That known as without putting our " Gwenn ha du " in our pocket we were not those which claimed that it is enough to change flag so that the men and the women of Brittany are finally free in the individual and collective plan. And if it is true that we line up in the independence camp, we never located the political debate in Brittany on that only ground.
Independence is legitimate.
If one admit that the Brittany exist as people and nation distinct, it be legitimate that one fight for its sovereignty with the instar some many other people of world which have know preserve their independence during their history or that they have obtain it after a fight of release national. The fact of being Breton should not deprive to us of the rights that the others have or in other words, we are not Bretons but undoubtedly French alive in a geographical space called Brittany.
Moreover, is it necessary to point out that we knew already independence, that one even which was confiscated to us after a military defeat? The centuries will not change anything with this historical truth.
Independence is realistic.
From the economic point of view, it is not contestable by anybody that Brittany has all the assets of a country able to be managed in all independence. Our country is well more than the " pantry " of France. Its size is comparable with that of the Netherlands, of Belgium, of Denmark, of Israel. Its geographical situation with the point of Europe east one of best of the world. Its climate, its maritime frontages, its agricultural potential, are at the same time the allies and the fruits of People whose rooting, dynamism and opening are not any more to show.
Realism is statement " Brittany cannot manage without France " without never saying why. But the lack of realism be well to justify the situation of dependence current which we make believe that we be offset in a State centralize which in more we deprive of fifth of our territory and, therefore, of third of our potential economic! Famous " the Breton problem " does not exist. Only exists a French problem in Brittany.
Independence is possible.
Whereas much at one time considered the access to an unspecified independence, like a dream suitable to occupy the ends of banquets, never the history with put to us this dish so close with the range of the hand. Without speaking about did the Algerian independence of 1962, how much country and people acquire it since the last war and sit since at UNO? More close to us, in Europe, the recent events showed that there was nothing final and that the lead covers of the most totalitarian empires ended up yielding. From the Ukraine in Latvia, from Slovaquie in Slovénie, several tens of " small " nations come during these last years if not of these last months, often against any waiting, to release themselves and to be recognized like populates independent within the International Community. This historical movement which points out another end of century curiously, XIXème century, soon will touch people even closer to us. The Basques who express per tens of thousands, behind streamers claiming self-determination, the Scot which claim independent Scotland in Europe, the Catalans who affirm themselves openly walks from there towards independence, the Corsicans who henceforth put ahead the principle of national sovereignty, without forgetting the Flemings who soon will forget that they had been Belgian once!
The Bretons ones do they may find it beneficial not to seize this historical opportunity which is offered to them?
independence is necessary.
To change of framework institutional in pass of statute of community regional with four department and a super prefect with that of country independent equip of its clean government indicate by the people, be enough not in oneself to modify like by a waving of a magic wand de magic wand the reality socio-economic and cultural of our country, nor the daily newspaper of Breton. The abrogation of the unemployment and the precariousness of employment, the end of the social injustices are not issued more than the economic revival or the cultural alarm clock. Undoubtedly. Remain that it would be more effective to decide on our premises measures to be taken in all the fields than to wait than Paris wants to lend the ear to it well. The principal reason holds in the fact that we do not have the same interests and that they are often contradictory. The emigration of the young people, low wages, all-tourism, the disappearance of our farmers and maintaining our fishermen, as many disasters which are not inescapable. They are the consequence of political choices which serve the interests of the French State and the multinationals.
Independence would enable us to defend to us same the interests of our people in the European and international authorities instead of entrusting them to ministers who serve only the " higher interest " of France. In les field of agriculture and some fishing, one see well how what make our potential economic be sell off on the furnace bridge of the interest common with Brussels and elsewhere, whereas the people which lay out some representative to them defend arrive to draw their pin of play in obtain some mode special or derogatory.
What is true from the economic point of view is true as much within the framework of the fight against unemployment and exclusion social, the defense of our coasts and our natural inheritance, the cultural and linguistic policy. That would have avoided us going to whine for a statute of official language or by the ratification of a European charter!
Independence what it is not.
Independence is not autonomy. This concept, which lost its original direction, is related to a situation of dependence which maintains people under the political domination of a State, which grants certain rights to him intern all while depriving it of essence: freedom. Autonomous Brittany is a lure insofar as France is not historically a community of people which voluntarily agreed to gather as in a federation, but a state resulting from a monarchical system denier of these same people. Autonomy is very often only one stage transitory which falls like a ripe fruit at the time of the functioning of people towards his independence. If it can be good to take, it can of nothing constitute a long-term objective.
Independence is not autarky. Brittany, maritime country, are sufficiently open on the world never not to be tempted to fold up itself on itself. Its prosperity of formerly and its development (unequal) current, it owes them with its exchanges with outside. Independence would enable us to increase these international relations towards the west and the south whereas the current dependence locks up us in economic relations almost only turned towards France and always supervised by Paris.
Independence in Europe of the People.
Independence will confer on Brittany and to our people a political and legal framework recognized at the international level and in very first place on the European plan. Europe that we want is not that of the referendum on the Treaty of Maastricht which was not subjected to us as people, like the Danes or the Irishmen (except North) but as a citizen of a state that we refuse. Europe could be beneficial only insofar as our existence is recognized like populates freely deciding to join, to cooperate and exchange or not with others at the international level.
Independence with the Breton people.
Independence could not be declared by a handle of individuals who would have self-proclaimed leaders of their people without the assent of this last. It is on the contrary the fruit of a massive and major awakening within the whole of our compatriots. It is not an end in itself but a political objective in a project of individual and collective release. It cannot be defined as a preliminary in its real contents in measurement or it is not a group to decide in the place of people. But it is well the vocation of a political movement to make the proposals which seem to him right so that each one is determined with complete freedom.
Y.G." Go to: http://emgann.chez.com/lang/anglais.htm
Also See: "I Say Again, you are no Parliament!" Go to: http://gkhales.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/i-say-again-this-is-no-parliament.html
The Innocent Suffer..RIP Laurence Turbec 28 Years Old
Quote; "A
bomb exploded beside a McDonald's in a small town in Brittany today,
killing a restaurant worker. The Interior Ministry suggested that it was
the work of an obscure Breton separatist movement.
A second bomb, outside a post office about 35 miles away in Rennes, the region's chief city, was defused.
The
explosion, in the Dinan area, went off about 10 a.m. near the
restaurant's drive-through window. It hurled the body of the worker, a
28-year-old woman named Laurence Turbec, into shrubbery decorating the
parking lot. Only a handful of customers were in the restaurant at the
time.
No
one took responsibility for either bomb, but the police said three
sticks of dynamite found in Rennes were from a cache of eight tons
stolen at gunpoint from an industrial depot last September.
The
police eventually recovered five tons and arrested a team of suspects
from the small Brittany Combat Group and the better-known Basque
separatist movement E.T.A." Go to: http://www.nytimes.com/2000/04/20/world/french-mcdonald-s-bombed-breton-terrorists-suspected.html
For full article.
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