European Resolution on Endangered Languages and French Establishment Attitudes to the Breton Language

When on September 11 2013 the European Parliament adopted a resolution on protecting minority languages it did so by an overwhelming majority vote of 645 to 26. Not surprisingly amongst those voting against were French Centre-right MEPs claiming that it violated the unity of the French Republic.

This hostility does not come as a surprise to the people of Brittany. They have experienced the persecution of the Breton language since the time of the French revolution. Abbé Gregoire (1794) in his report on the necessity of universalising the French language, wrote that ‘…..Breton and Basque, represent the barabarism of centuries past and need to be obliterated and replaced by standard French’. 

This attitude has continued in various forms over the years, from the French Minister of Education’s  sinister statement in 1925 that ‘For the linguistic unity of France, the Breton language must disappear’, to the offensive official warning signs that appeared in schools in the 1950s declaring; ‘No spitting on the ground or speaking Breton’.  Even in 1972, George Pompidou, then President of France said that there was no place for regional languages in France.

Now the French establishment would be happy to see the eradication of the Breton language by a strategy of indifference and stealth. The adoption by the European Union of the Charter for Regional or Minority Languages has not been ratified by the French Government after President François Hollande reneged on a previous electoral campaign promise to do so. The French hostility to Breton may not now be as explicit as in the past. However, their hope is that the language becomes so weakened that they can wring their hands in false sorrow exclaiming that it is ‘sad but now too late’ to save the minority languages in areas falling under their administration. 

Nevertheless, the importance of the European vote on protecting minority languages cannot be underestimated. Whether they ratify the Charter or not, the French Governments attitude and actions towards minority languages will be scrutinised internationally. Any failure on their part to protect and even promote these languages will be a major source of embarrassment and criticism that they would be wise to avoid.