Breton national committee

The July 3rd 1940, with the “Congress” of Pontivy, François Debeauvais and Olier Mordrel create the Breton National committee , and draw up a proclamation of eighteen points, known as Programme of Pontivy. It decides also the edition of a new review the Breton Hour . 201 numbers will appear between July 1940 and June 1944 (its first writer will be Morvan Lebesque, then Jean Merrien until December 1940).

Context

The choice of Pontivy is not pain-killer, because it is in this city which the last congress should have been held of the Breton National Parti in 1939 that the police force had prohibited. Little of anybody (approximately 200 including 80 released prisoners) took part in this meeting. Many militants were still held in the camps, others as the painter Paul Durivaut had found death on the battle fields. A few days rather, Mordrel and Debeauvais, to which were joined Marcel Guieysse and Célestin Lainé, had met to form this CNB, whose Debauvais is elected president unanimously. The post of vice-president was to fall to Olier Mordrel, but this station was removed by the majority of the members, following a request for Célestin Lainé which did not see its utility. This interior intrigue will explain 4 months later changes in the organization of the party and the ousting of Mordrel.

Speech

Debauvais, Guieysse and Lainé spoke in turn after Marcel Planiol, the lawyer of the GNP had pointed out the claims to fame of each one. Mordrel will proclaim the declaration of Pontivy, where it is specified that " the Breton National council, body representative of Breton, concerned of the collective good and the honor of their people, would act at the hour chosen by him to equip Brittany with a national State, within its natural framework and the spirit of its tradition, so that it could live finally in organized nation, free of its aspirations and mistress of its interests " and that " the international statute of the Breton State, the nature of its relations with France and Germany would be defined by agreements, freely discussed within the framework of the possibilities offered by the new general terms ". The prinicpaux objectives of the future Constitution will be exposed, in the " Program of Pontivy " , what was to reproduce the Breton Hour in its first number of the July 14th 1940.

Epilog

The militants dispersed in end of the afternoon. Members of a patronage hooted part of the nationalists, and continued by the members of the service of order, entonnèrent the " Marseilles " at good distance. Célestin Lainé took officially possession of the castle of Rohan, which it transformed into barracks to lodge the first members of its future Breton legion (forty people).

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