St Grégoire: 20.12.2006 Press-release from: Mouvement fédéraliste de Bretagne Spokeperson: Jean Yves Quiguer
Could you draw a boat for me?
On 19th December 2006
(The lack of regional maritime policy)
We have just read an article by Alain Guellec in Ouest France daily newspaper that hurt our Breton identity and shocked us.
The article deals with a French region whose Economic and Social Council asserts that « the region has no maritime policy » , about which the writer comments that “everybody agrees that this is regrettable ».
We investigated in this matter.
Was the journalist writing about Auvergne lead by Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, or about the Centre region lead by Michel Sapin? We would then have understood that scandalmongers were trying to pick a quarel during election period.
But what is shocking is that the journalist was dealing with Brittany.
« Regrettable » is therefore an understatement.
The article by M. Guellec is not written without humour, whether it is deliberate or not. He starts by writing “Please, let's draw something which looks like an ambitious maritime policy for Brittany! That was more or less what Jean-Yves le Drian invited the Economic and Social Council to do ».
Christmas comes closer and closer. A new year will start soon too. Before leaving school, children drew on a piece of paper Brittany, surrounded by the sea, and will give it to their parents.
It is exactly what François Le Foll, rapporter to the Economic and Social Council, has just done in a document called « phase document» .
Nobody could then say that it is never too late to do better. Yet, one has to know that this request for setting up 'a regional maritime policy' is not the result of a political realization.
It only inscribes itself in the context of the Green Book published by the European Commission entitled 'towards a maritime policy for the Union: a European vision of seas and oceans. »
Should Brittany wait until Europe invents itslef a maritime policy to discover that it is a peninsula, a maritime country, a country for the sea?
Out of submission to Paris and out of guilty stupidity, we forgot Brest and its vocation to be Europe's first harbour. The various reasons that were raised − distance, hinterland, etc. are all countered by reality. One only needs to consider the most important US harbours' location to understand.
This aforementioned document also reads that « the region will intervene only in matters that concern it primarily as defined by law. »
It is therefore difficult to imagine how the Economic and Social Council can write something different. This allegiance is superfluous.
On the contrary, it is neither written nor implied that the region can influence any modification of these laws.
Because our representatives are affiliated to state political parties and elected only on the basis of their choices and decisions: safeguard of an area …
On the eve of a new year, which begins and follows on the one that precedes it, Brittany Federalist Movement (le Mouvement Fédéraliste de Bretagne) wishes an institutional rupture, which is needed to stop going straight ahead into the wall of distress.
We also take advantage of this opportunity to wish everybody, whether Bretons or not, our best wishes and to renew our thanks to ABP for the massive work it achieves every year.
Bloavezh mat
Jean-Yves QUIGUER President to Mouvement Fédéraliste de Bretagne