[Youenn]

Originally Posted by Mynydd

And which country was not?

So, why do you say “French” for Armoricans ? It's just anachronic.

How are you comparing to 800 hundred years of fighting and dignity of the Irish people? It is truly amazing that you do..

I said that because I have the impression you would like see Breton nationalists fight English instead the total frenchisazion.

Of course the situation are obviously different. England has been violent with Ireland but that makes a strong people - against English, not against African migrants since there are an african mayor - and she never try to englishized nationally Irish people.
The french colonisation has been more insidious, no violences and strong assimilationism since the french revolution.

I would like to dig into that part of history. If I'm not wrong, many Bretons turned down the fight as Henri IV converted to Catholicism, letting down their own people and the Spanish who were there to help their cause. As in the case of the port and city of Saint Malo, which submitted to the obedience of Henri IV of France.

It was the surrender of the Breton government of Morcoeur, supported by Spain, to the French that confirmed the French control of Brittany.

England was and is Protestant, not France. Brittany who was strongly Catholic - more than France in fact - will split very easily from a protestant France. See Flanders and Netherland, they are ethnically united, they split for religious reasons. Today with the lose of christianism, there are more hopes they unite but for ethnical reasons.

Finally, religious things made a strong distinction between people, more than ethnicity or meta-ethnicity. Wales, Isle of Man, Cornwall and Scotland who are more or less protestant had more difficulties to gain a recognition comparing to Ireland.

Today, in Brittany this loss of catholicism clarify many things but it's a bit too late. Materialism, french and non-euro immigration will not help to awake breton people, except a minority.

It was even before that it was identified by othes as Gaul. Even in modern times, in Spain, it is customary to use words like galo, país galo, autoridades galas, etc.. to refer to France and to the things pertaining to France.

We call “Britons”, people of Great Britain, that means Scottish or English are Britons ? No, only partially. I notice, Republicans like British use the same ridiculous cheating to prove their expensionism.

Since and image is said to be worth more than thousand words..

Your map is – purposely - wrong. Borders have moved and today we are all gallos like africans french speakers, the accent are the only thing who is different.
This map explain more the situation between the centuries :



Anyway, Breton ethnic identity for sure, for many reasons :

- People of the east don't care for Gallo dialect or Gallo identity, they prefer want speak Breton. I have some explanations.
The first is that they are from a Bro who has been gallicized before the XIX century.
The second, it's more complex and it's more for bretons of the march, the east of Roazhon/Rennes and Naoned/Nantes, territories which never have spoken Breton. With the time, they have been assimilate to the Breton state but with their Armorican substrat they feel mentally more connections to speak a langage who are more near to their mentallity that a Roman language. I think it's for this reason that you find more Breton-speakers in Naoned/Nantes than in Kemper/Quimper.

- Another reasons are political. I don't know many multi-linguistical states who don't have problems. I'm not against a special statut for the Pays de Retz like the Schleswig-Holstein but for the rest of Brittany, I'm pretty sure - after read “La Bretagne dans 20 ans” of Ronan Le Coadic and after speak with bretons of the east – they will not be against the breton language.

You can see this article and this map who show the interest of Bretons :

Les Bretons face au destin de leur langue

... or a Gallo-Breton identity?
(note: Gallo = a Galo-Romance Langue d'Oïl)

Gallo-Breton identity ? Never heard that.
It's funny because the first people to defend the Gallo dialect are the French imperialists, even if they don't care (but really don't care...) of others dialect like the Normand, the Poitevin or other. In fact, for them this dialect is just useful to destroy our identity.
The second are the breton marxists, because it's a struggle of minorities.