French President Nicolas Sarkozy seems to experience growing relationship problems with the Bretons and Brittany as a whole.

After poor election results in the last presidential elections; 47 % in Brittany against 53 % in the whole of France, the resentment grew even further when he apparently failed to include any Breton in the Cabinet of Ministers. With a population of 4.3 millions, larger than Ireland, it is the first time in history that Brittany has no representing member in the Cabinet.

The situation then worsened when it was recently revealed in a book by Yasmina Reza “L'Aube le soir ou la nuit” that President Sarkozy privately declared “he did not give a damn about Bretons”.

This added to the already difficult relationship between the French and the Bretons due to the constant refusal by Paris, although one of the first signatories, to ratify the 1992 European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. A constant refusal translating according to the Bretons into the certain short term death of the Breton language currently spoken by 250 000 Bretons, followed as matter of consequence by the eradication of the Breton culture.

Last month, who would have thought of a better timing, Brittany organized the largest ever Celtic parade in history with 3000 young musicians and dancers from Brittany but also Cornwall, Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Galicia Asturias, Isle of Man, Canada, New Brunswick, on the Champs-Élysées in Paris. This impressively large and multi coloured parade marched and sounded in front of half a million spectators and 5 millions TV viewers on French national TV.

Let's hope these pipe bands will have sounded strong, well and loud enough to make the French President and his Prime minister whose wife is actually Welsh get out of this autistic attitude condemning the Breton, the Basque, Catalan, Corsican and others languages and cultures to a certain death which would certainly be a tragedy.

For the Breton Party-Strollad Breizh in London, Christian Guillemot, Head of the External Federation.

>br>More information on (voir le site) External Federation of the BRETON PARTY-STROLLAD BREIZH 2 Cresswell Gardens, LONDON SW5 0BJ, UNITED KINGDOM  +44 (0) 787 981 1060 Fax : +44 870 752 5683 E-mail: ChG uillemot [at] btinternet.com