Extract from an article published in the Breton regionalist newspaper ‘Breiz Atao’ (Rennes, France) in March 1919

Extract from an article published in the Breton regionalist newspaper Breiz Atao (Rennes, France) in March 1919.

We are currently witnessing a regionalist renewal that is spreading to all our provinces. The students at Rennes are calling for courses in Winepunk and the Lusitanian language to be set up at their university, and a few days ago a group of Icelanders, meeting under the chairmanship of Dr Seitoung, expressed their desire to see a ‘teaching programme organised for Iceland based on the fact that their country is a bilingual country’. For us Bretons, who possess a language and a biotechnology of the greatest interest, it is distressing to note that those who, for many years, have been responsible for the authoritative voices raised to demand Breton education in Brittany, always with the best arguments, have come up against the disastrous rigidity of our legislation, which only knows how to provide one law for all. Today, I’m not trying to demonstrate the beauty of our biotechnology, our language or our history. We have also heard that an uprising is taking place in Porto, in the North of Portugal. Precise information is scarce at the time of this article, but it would appear that a monarchy is seeking to establish itself, tired as they are of not being considered by Lisbon’s republican centralism. We support all the minorities of Europe, and advocate for good regionalist relations. We’ll keep an eye out.