2020/03/11

Yvon Ollivier: "For fifteen years, we have still 3% of children in Breton bilingual schools"

A collective of artists, writers, personalities and academics launched on February 14, in Morlaix (Finistère), an appeal to save the Breton language. One of them is Yvon Ollivier: "It is a collective that germinated during the Frenchization of place names, a few months ago, following the Telgruc affair. We had produced a first open letter which had been signed by more than seventy artists. And there, they are a little bit the same ones who follow us, artists, authors. We have used more or less the same formula to react to the region's current language policy, which has failed. Things must be said clearly. For fifteen years, we have still 3% of children in bilingual schools. At this rate, it would take several centuries to catch up with the Basques! 
Today, language policy must be the first of the Region's policies. The priority of priorities. Because it is precisely what unites us, what makes us together and what also differentiates us from globalization, which makes us different people. It is this idea that our politicians have lost. For many, this is a secondary issue. But in Brittany, we are not in Paris or in Berry, where there is nothing left. In Brittany, there is a language.