L'Heure Bretonne

"L'Heure Bretonne" (lit: "Breton hour") was a Breton nationalist weekly newspaper which was published from June 1940 to June 1944. It was the organ of the Breton National Party and was strongly associated with collaborationist politics during World War II.

Origins

In July 1940, after the Fall of France, the pro-German Breton nationalists François Debeauvais and Olier Mordrel called the Congress of Pontivy, at which they created the Breton National Committee to coordinate Breton nationalist projects. The committee decided to found the weekly newspaper "L'Heure Bretonne". The first issue was symbolically dated 14 July (Bastille day) 1940. The paper was in practice a continuation of the nationalists' earlier journal "Breiz Atao". [http://www.aber.ac.uk/mercator/images/breton_literature_during_German_Occupation.pdf Piette, Gwenno (2000) "Breton Literature During the German Occupation (1940-1944) Reflections of Collaboration?", presented at University of Ulster, Coleraine, at a conference on the theme of ‘Celtic Literature in the 20th Century’] ]

Publication

The newspaper was published in Rennes in the headquarters of the Breton National Committee. 201 issues were published between July 1940 and June 1944. Morvan Lebesque was its first editor, for two months in 1940. He later said he left when it became obvious that the Committee wanted to paper to pursue a pro-Nazi line. He was followed as editor by Jean Merrien, a close associate of Olier Mordrel, who left when Mordrel was ousted from the leadership of the Breton National Party.

By 1942 "L'Heure Bretonne" had a circulation of about 25,000 and employed fifty members of staff at its offices in Rennes.

In August 1940, some nationalists selling "L'Heure Bretonne" were detained at Quimper by the Germans, but after this incident, the paper was published and circulated without problems until June 4, 1944. Its editorial line was consistent with German propaganda. It attacked Jews, leftist "Jacobins" and the English. However, it also attacked the French in general, on behalf of the "Breton race ", and new "Aryan" Europe in which the Bretons would take an active role.

Content

The content of the newspaper reflects its intransigent separatist politics and repeated challenge to the Vichy government. The newspaper took particular care to avoid offending the German occupying forces. However it did not adopt explicitly Nazi ideological rhetoric, despite its solidarity with Germany's war effort, with weekly articles recounting the exploits of the Wehrmacht in Russia. The attitude of the paper was expressed by former communist Gwendal Denez in november 1940:

I would rather clasp vigourously the hand of the passers-by, singing their conquest song, and stare right into their eyes without the least hatred. Because I have sound reasons for believing that the conquerors of the West will not hinder us in the slightest in the success of our task : to build a New Brittany on the ruins of the old World.

The main themes addressed by the newspaper are the history of Brittany, the misdeeds of Vichy and a repeated and extreme Anglophobia. It also covered daily life in Brittany, with articles on the peasantry, crafts, modern "Breton" design, and so on.

Antisemitism

«A la porte les juifs et les enjuivés» , ("Show the Jews and Judaized the door") was an article that "L'Heure Bretonne" published in 1942, No. 105, page 1, in the middle of the first page, under the signature "DR" , July 18, 1942. It followed the arrests of Jews in Paris known as the "Vel d'Hiv Roundup", of 16 and 17 July 1942.

In the same vein, Job Jaffré for example published under his pseudonym "Tug" in April 1943 denunciation of the bombings of "youtre-Atlantique" [A wordplay on "outre-Atlantique" ("over the Atlantic") and "youtre", a derogatory term for "Jew"] (No. 142) and awaits in October 1943 a "reversal of alliance... when the Jewish problem has been eliminated" (No. 171, with its signature St. K.)

Bibliography

* Bertrand Frélaut, "Les nationalistes bretons de 1939 à 1945", Brasparts, Beltan, 1985.

* "L'Heure bretonne". Journal breton hebdomadaire, from July 1940 to (Mai 1944)

References