What are we doing with our Breton freedoms?

The festival of Breton freedoms, which will take place soon, prompts reflection on our freedoms. What do we do with our Breton freedoms? "He who sees in freedoms anything other than themselves is made to serve," said Tocqueville in his time. I would just like us to question ourselves a little!

A celebration of Breton freedoms, which will take place very soon, encourages us to reflect on the meaning we give them.

The French state and the forces of the system consider them to be nonexistent, and there is nothing very surprising about that. But the most serious issue is what we, Bretons, make of our freedoms.

The electoral successes of the Scottish SNP and the Welsh Plaid Cymru remind us that, while we have already won the cultural battle, we have not yet won the political battle.

Autonomy is on everyone's mind today in Brittany, from the left to the right. One must be Mael de Calan to prefer living under tutelage. This is certainly a reflection of the collapse of the French state, which, in its thaumaturgic function, does not have much longer to go, but it is also the reward for the hard work that we, Breton activists, have put in for years. And no one should try to take credit for it.

What do we do with this cultural victory? That is the real question we must ask ourselves.

Are we going to sell the concept of autonomy and our Breton freedoms to the forces of the system, that is to say, to the PS of Chesnais-Girard?

We can sense the maneuvers of those who hope, in the name of leftist unity, for a cozy position in an alliance with the forces of the system. It would still be a way to oppose the RN... There is always a good reason to sell one's freedoms. Chesnais-Girard needs this Breton image to maintain his power.

But let us watch the Jacobin system collapse before our eyes for moral and financial reasons. Blanquer's recent outburst is merely the cry of the dying beast that is stiffening.

Chesnais-Girard is the candidate of the PS system, even if he seeks a more appealing image with his breath that has nothing Breton about it. But what has he done for the past eight years except maintain the Jacobin system, endorsing all the painful decisions coming from Paris to make Brittany the eternal variable of adjustment?

On autonomy, he has only followed a wish initiated by Breizh a gleiz, defusing it in a bland report where the "Breton people" are not even mentioned. According to him, the Breton people do not exist. He is primarily responsible for the massive failure of language policy, which he is completely indifferent to. He restricts aid to Breton associations, the ICB, and others. He docilely follows Parisian decisions, such as on wind turbines, without further reflection. I do not remember hearing him raise his voice even once towards Paris or the academic rector.

Let us place ourselves in the 1980s. We hoped a lot from the concept of decentralization back then. We now know that it was merely a ruse to maintain the centralizing system. The concept of decentralization has been appropriated, distorted by the forces of the system, and nothing has changed. The reunification of our territory is still not done - Hollande, who was just welcomed like a prince in Liffré, rejected it in 2015 - and decentralization rhymes with the increase of the powers of the prefect.

Will we see tomorrow the concept of autonomy appropriated in turn and defused by the Socialist Party of Chesnais-Girard with the help of a few Breton activists?

Why grant this easy Breton legitimacy to people who only express the interests of the Jacobin power system? As proof, at every election, all the networks of Parisian power are mobilized to support the PS candidate.

Our freedoms are not for sale!

Breton women and men will never trust those who do not believe in themselves and keep selling their freedoms.

"He who sees in freedom anything other than itself is made to serve," said Tocqueville in his time. We are at that point.

We have a tradition deeply rooted in Brittany for so long that consists of playing the eternal auxiliaries. This was the case with Rome.

To what extent have we fallen? From a people once so proud on its own land, we have become just another clientele for the PS in Brittany, and not even the privileged clientele. Many of us live in the present and have completely lost the historical depth of who we are.

More than ever, let us cherish our freedoms that were falsely confused with privileges in 1789.

We must cherish them all the more because we have lost the use of them.

Let us stop selling what we no longer even use and have confidence in ourselves because we are no worse than the Welsh and the Scots.

Above all, let us watch the system collapse!

The centralizing power system has mastered the art of making its victims its best defenders. In other words, it is us who keep it afloat by playing the game of an increasingly ridiculous local democracy, by accepting all these cuts in budgets to the point of being unable to act. Parisian power is refocusing on the capital and grand expenditures. We are reduced to begging the King of England for the repair of a church roof in Ouessant! This power system relies solely on progressive indebtedness. In the long run, it is doomed.

The other powerful argument used by those who seek to sell our freedoms is the necessity to fight against the far right.

That is understood! We do not want the RN! By its visceral hostility to diversity, it is the Jacobin republic that carries within it the accession to power of the RN, which is merely its authoritarian culmination. In 2012, I highlighted this slippery slope in the book "La désunion française." It is this logical culmination that is about to occur today.

The RN is not the alternative to Macron's power; it is its natural culmination.

And should we support this Jacobin system that carries the RN within it like a cloud carries a storm?

The only true alternative to the system is us, the old peripheral nations, the old peoples. It is our strong and assumed identities that keep us away from the peril of the far right. This is what is happening in Scotland and Wales.

The far right thrives on identity void. People no longer know what it means to be French today. The great republican values? They are so distorted that they no longer mean anything. Assimilation? It is failing. So, greatness? France no longer counts. He who no longer knows who he is will never integrate anyone.

On the other hand, it is our strong identities that protect us from hatred and give us the strength to integrate those who come from elsewhere.

Those who want to join the forces of the system to block the RN will only better prepare its accession to power while giving the worst image of democracy. People no longer want these little schemes and other "cueffades" concocted by a power in decline.

The only alternative to the collapsing system and the slope that leads it into the arms of the RN is us, the Breton people.

So let us no longer sell our freedoms to the highest bidder! And let us work for the future. We have everything to build.

Yvon Ollivier

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