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Brittany (France): Associative movements

Stop Nucléaire 56 Trawalc'h
Breizh Positive
Homo Atao
Kanabreizh

See also:

Brittany (Traditional province, France)

Stop Nucléaire 56 Trawalc'h

Flag of Stop Nucléaire 56 Trawalc'h, two versions - Images by Ivan Sache, 11 September 2020

Stop Nucléaire 56 Trawalc'h (website) is a grass-root movement campaigning for the immediate ban of nuclear technologies, both for civil and military purposes. The association is based in Vannes (Department of Morbihan, 56). "Trawalc'h" means "Enough" in Breton.

The flag of Stop Nucléaire 56 Trawalc'h (photo, photo, photo, photo, photo), is square, or, sometimes, slightly longer than wide, yellow with the association's emblem in the center.
The emblem of the association features the yellow and black symbol of radio-activity, superimposed with a green hand commemorating the first success of the anti-nuclear movement in Brittany.
On 30 March 1975, 15,000 people joined the march organized by the Comité Régional d'Information Nucléaire (CRIN - Regional Committee for Nuclear Information) against the project of building a nuclear power plant in the Erdeven dunes site. After months of popular struggle, the project was cancelled. The victory was celebrated by the erection of the "Green Hand" statue close to the Erdeven dunes.
[Official website]

The Green Hand statue was erected on a private plot because the Mayor of Erdeven refused to have it on the municipal territory. The hand means "You shall not pass!" and "Help!", as recalled by Michel Le Corvec, founding president of the CRIN. Now the oldest anti-nuclear monument in France, the statue was fully restored in 2015 by the sculptor Patrick Ar Goarnig, and re-inaugurated during the celebration of the 40th anniversary of the anti-nuclear movement in Brittany.
[Ouest France, 3 April 2015]

The CRIN was established soon after the announcement of the building of the Erdeven nuclear power plant, in November 1974, by inhabitants of Erdeven and of the neighboring villages, Etel and Belz. The movement grew up quickly, with the set-up of 80 local committees, including in Plogoff and Guimaëc, the two other Breton sites selected for the building of nuclear power plants.
In February 1975, the Municipal Councils of the 10 municipalities that had originally supported the Erdeven project voted against it, upon people's pressure. During the Easter period, an anti-nuclear festival was organized on the site of Erdeven, gathering 15,000 participants. Coverage in the regional and national press increased the pressure on municipalities in Brittany and Vendée, which progressively turned down the projects.
In spite of the support of the Regional Council of Bretagne, the Erdeven project was abandoned in November 1975 because of the strong resistance of the local population; it was relocated to another Breton village, Porsmoguer, with the same outcome.
[CRIN archives]

Ivan Sache, 11 September 2020

Breizh Positive

Flag of Breizh Positive - Image by Ivan Sache, 6 January 1999

The youth movement Breizh Positive was founded in 1996 to promote a "free, egalitarian and fraternal Brittany". The movement's motto is "Colouring the Gwenn-ha-Du".
The movement uses the Raga Breizh flag, originally designed by the students' union Dazont (Future). The horizontal stripes of the flag are, from top to bottom:
- yellow, to represent the richness of Breton language and culture;
- red, to represent social struggle and solidarity;
- purple, to represent gender equality;
- blue, to represent democracy and Europe;
- green, to represent ecology.
[P. Rault. Les drapeaux bretons de 1188 à nos jours [rau98]]

Ivan Sache, 6 January 1999

Homo Atao

Homo Atao, two versions - Images by Ivan Sache, 30 October 2008

The Homo Atao (Gay Forever) flag, representing the Breton gays and lesbians, was designed in February 1997 by Jacques Ars, on the model of the Rainbow Flag. It has six horizontal stripes, from top to bottom, red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple. A white canton is charged with the eleven ermine spots of the Gwenn-ha-Du, which are coloured according to the neighbouring stripe. The flag indeed exists in two versions, with the canton either white or black. The version of the flag with the white canton was seen in 1997 during the Gay Pride parade in Paris.
[P. Rault. Les drapeaux bretons de 1188 à nos jours [rau98]]

Homo Atao is a registered trademark of the bar La Bernique Hurlante, located at Rennes and once owned by J. Ars, who wrote on 19 August 2004 that he got the idea of the design during a meting of the Lesbian and Gay Pride Collective at Rennes.
Ars was originally worried by a possible confusion with Breizh Atao (Breizh Forever), the name of reviews edited by the Breton nationalists before and during the Second World War, often associated with collaboration with the German occupant; however, it seems that Breizh Atao is no longer associated with these historical movements.

Ivan Sache, 30 October 2008

Kanabreizh

Kanabreizh - Image by Ivan Sache, 6 January 1999

The Kanabreizh flag was used by Breton partisans of liberalization of cannabis use during a demonstration organized on 1 March 1998 in Nantes. It is a Gwenn-ha-Du with the ermine spots replaced by black cannabis leaves.
[P. Rault. Les drapeaux bretons de 1188 à nos jours [rau98]]

Ivan Sache, 6 January 1999