Parti Breton

The Breton Party (Parti Breton in French / Strollad Breizh in Breton) (or PB) is a social democratic and nationalist political party which aspires to the creation of an independent "Republic of Brittany", within the European Union.

Program

The movement was created in 2002. Its objective is to give Brittany necessary institutions for its economic, social, cultural, environmental and political development. "Brittany" is defined as both the modern administrative Région of "Brittany" and the département of Loire-Atlantique, which includes Nantes, the former capital of the Duchy of Brittany. Its aspirations include regional autonomy comparable to other European nations as Scotland or Catalonia, or full independence, as with Ireland.

The main idea is that Brittany has always been a nation, therefore has rights and liberties within the European Union. The Breton Party claims the creation of a Breton State, member of the European Union, officially recognized by International Authorities. It argues that beyond the principle that a nation should have independent rights, Brittany also has everything to gain by such a process of emancipation, on economic, cultural or environmental fronts.

Ideas

The slogan of the Breton Party is "emancipated and reunited Brittany". Analyzing the causes for the "stagnation of the Breton political movements", the party wants "to take the Bretons as they are and not as one would like them to be". In terms of the right-left axis, the Breton Party is situated between social democracy and social-liberal democracy (from the center-left to the center-right). The main objective is first of all to create Breton political "institutions". Claiming 400 members, most of whom have had no association with the earlier Breton movement, the Breton Party has members from the center-left, such as the professor and the contractor Jean-Paul Moisan from Nantes, or the center-right, such as Gérard Olliéric the current president.

Organization

The party is structured as a federation. There are federated sections organised by départment. There is a Paris section, and one for international members of the Breton diaspora. The international section is based in London, and has Christian Guillemot as its secretary.

Each federal section elects its secretary. The secretary is in charge of organizing the meetings, of representing the federation outside or within the Party. The federal secretaries are thus important links in the Party. They are not however leaders, but representatives. They remain ordinary members equal to others.

The national authorities are elected during the congress. The national council (the Parliament of the Parti Breton) is made of elected members, who sit every three months. It decides on the main national policies of the Party (adopting or not texts from activists, alliances, etc.). It is sometimes opened to the members of select committees.

The Executive board is led by the executive president (elected during the congress). It also meets every three months, and consists of secretaries appointed by the National Council. It is the executive authority at the federal level.

Askol

Created in 2004, Askol (Association of the Breton elected representatives for democracy) gathers the elected representatives (and former elected representatives) of Brittany, members or allies of the Parti Breton, and aims to work towards the institutional emancipation of Brittany. Its president is Yann Jestin, a deputy mayor of Lesneven, and its vice-president Jean-Claude Rivallain a local councillor of Vigneux-de-Bretagne.

Les Jeunes Bretons / Ar Vretoned Yaouank (The Young Bretons)

Ar Vretoned Yaouank is the youth section of the Party created in 2007. Its purpose is to lead activities specific to youth connected to the party, but in an informal way. In 2006 the Young Bretons / Ar Vretoned Yaouank (or JB AVY) participated in the “International Youth Days” organized by the Basque National Party in Bilbao and were received by the Lehendakari, leader of the Basque government. The Young Bretons brought out in February 2008 a document which summarises their ideas and the title of which is "it is now! ". The document is available on their website.

Elections

The Parti Breton has contested several elections: two by-elections in 2004, and again in 2005. Its candidates obtained for their first outing between 1.5% and 4% of the vote.

In the general election of 2007, 4 candidates were put forward:

*Yves LE MESTRIC for the district of Vitré (Ile-et-Villaine) deputy Brice MALET. 686 votes is 0.89%
*Gérard GUILLEMOT for the district of Rennes - the South ( Ile-et-Villaine) deputy Sebastien GIRARD. 249 votes is 0.57%
* Emile GRANVILLE for the district of Redon ( Ile-et-Villaine) deputy Olivier BERTHELOT. 847 votes is 1.27%
* Hervé LE GUEN for the district of Lorient ( Morbihan) deputy Gaël FLEURENT. 686 votes is 1.44% During a by-election to Redon on September 23rd, 2007, Émile Granville obtained 3.58%

In 2008, Yann Jestin, president of Askol, obtained 25.18% of the votes during the cantonal elections of Lesneven.

During the municipal elections in March 2008, the Parti Breton Party put forward about twenty candidates and obtained about ten municipal elected representatives among whom were a mayor and three deputies. These are the first representatives elected in Brittany from a nationalist party.