L'Heure Bretonne ("The Breton Times") 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.
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 . [1]
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 the 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. [1]
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.
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 Abeozen in November 1940:
I would rather clasp vigorously 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. [1]
The main themes addressed by the newspaper are the history of Brittany, the misdeeds of Vichy France 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.
Following the mass arrest of Jews in Paris known as the Vel' d'Hiv Roundup on 16 and 17 July 1942, L'Heure Bretonne published a front page article entitled À la porte les juifs et les enjuivés ("Show Jews and the Judaized the Door") under the signature "DR" (No. 105, July 18, 1942).
In the same vein, Job Jaffré, under his pseudonym "Tug", published a denunciation of the bombings committed by the forces of "youtre-Atlantique", a wordplay on "outre-Atlantique" ("over the Atlantic") and "youtre", a derogatory term for "Jew" (April 1943, No. 142). Later in the same year, he wrote that he expected a "reversal of alliance... when the Jewish problem has been eliminated" (October 1943, No. 171, under the initials St. K.)
Alan Heusaff, also Alan Heussaff was a Breton nationalist, linguist, dictionary compiler, prolific journalist and lifetime campaigner for solidarity between the Celtic peoples. A co-founder of the Celtic League in 1961, he was its first general secretary until 1984.
Célestin Lainé (1908–1983) was a Breton nationalist and collaborator during the Second World War who led the SS affiliated Bezen Perrot militia. His Breton language name is Neven Hénaff. He was a chemical engineer by training. After the war he lived in Ireland.
Breton nationalism is a form of regional nationalism associated with the region of Brittany in France. The political aspirations of Breton nationalists include the desire to obtain the right to self-rule, whether within France or independently of it, and to acquire more power in the European Union, United Nations and other international institutions.
Breiz Atao, was a Breton nationalist journal in the mid-twentieth century. It was written in French, and has always been considered as a French nationalist journal by the non-francized Bretons. The term is also used for the broader movement associated with the journal's political position.
The Breton Social-National Workers' Movement was a nationalist, separatist, and Fascist movement founded in 1941 by Théophile Jeusset. It emerged in Brittany from a deviationist faction of the Breton National Party; it disappeared the same year.
Olier Mordrel is the Breton language version of Olivier Mordrelle, a Breton nationalist and wartime collaborator with the Third Reich who founded the separatist Breton National Party. Before the war, he worked as an architect. His architectural work was influenced by Art Deco and the International style of Le Corbusier. He was also an essayist, short story writer, and translator. Mordrel wrote some of his works under the pen names Jean de La Bénelais, J. La B, Er Gédour, A. Calvez, Otto Mohr, Brython, and Olivier Launay.
Before and during World War II, the various Breton nationalist movements were generally right-wing, and sometimes fascist. The extent to which this led to collaboration with the Nazi occupiers of France during the war, together with their motivations, is a matter of historical controversy.
There were internment camps and concentration camps in France before, during and after World War II. Beside the camps created during World War I to intern German, Austrian and Ottoman civilian prisoners, the Third Republic (1871–1940) opened various internment camps for the Spanish refugees fleeing the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939). Following the prohibition of the French Communist Party (PCF) by the government of Édouard Daladier, they were used to detain communist political prisoners. The Third Republic also interned German anti-Nazis.
The Breton National Party was a nationalist party in Brittany that existed from 1931 to 1944. The party was disbanded after the liberation of France in World War II, because of ties to the Third Reich.
François Debeauvais was a Breton nationalist and wartime collaborator with Nazi Germany. His name is also spelled in many "Breton" variants: François Debauvais, Fransez Debeauvais, Fransez Debauvais, Fañch Debeauvais, Fañch Debauvais, Fañch deb.
The Breton National Committee was a Breton nationalist body founded on July 3, 1940 at the so-called "Congress of Pontivy", headed by François Debeauvais and Olier Mordrel. It was designed to promote Breton independence from France by collaboration with the occupying German forces. They drew up a proclamation of eighteen points, known as "Pontivy Programme". They also created a new journal, l'Heure Bretonne. 201 issues appeared between July 1940 and June 1944. Its first editor was Morvan Lebesque until December 1940, then Jean Merrien.
Morvan Marchal, is the Breton name of Maurice Marchal, an architect and a militant Breton nationalist. He is best known for having designed the national flag of Brittany.
René-Yves Creston, born René Pierre Joseph Creston, was a Breton artist, designer and ethnographer who founded the Breton nationalist art movement Seiz Breur. During World War II he was active in the French Resistance.
The Breton Autonomist Party was a political party which existed in Brittany from 1927 to 1931.
Maurice Duhamel was the pen-name of Maurice Bourgeaux, a Breton musician, writer and activist who was a leading figure in Breton nationalism and federalist politics in the years before World War II.
Théophile Jeusset was a Breton nationalist writer and fascist political activist. He is also known by his Breton language pseudonym Jean-Yves Keraudren.
Youenn Drezen is the Breton language name of Yves Le Drézen, a Breton nationalist writer and activist. He is also known as Corentin Cariou and Tin Gariou.
François-Joseph-Claude Jaffrennou was a Breton language writer and editor. He was a Breton nationalist and a neo-druid bard. He is also known as François Taldir-Jaffrennou, since he also used the Druidic name Taldir. He was one of the pioneers of the Breton autonomist movement.
François Eliès, born Fañch Eliès and better known by the pseudonym Abeozen, was a Breton nationalist, novelist and dramatist who wrote in the Breton language. Abeozen was also a noted scholar of the Welsh language.
Joseph-Marie Jaffré, better known as Job Jaffré, was a French journalist and Breton nationalist. He also published under pseudonyms, most notably as Jos Pempoull.
