The hemorrhage continues. Koun Breizh wishes to express its indignation to Mr. Mayor of Plouzane following the de-Bretonization of the Coat-Edern school. What is the point of being at level 2 of the Ya d'ar breizhoneg charter to end up here? We demand the restoration of the original name or the addition of the new name to Coat-Edern.
Open letter to Yves Du Buit on the de-Bretonization of the Coat-Edern school
Subject: de-Bretonization of the Coat-Edern school
Copy to Dominique Cap, President of the Association of Mayors of Finistère
Mr. Mayor,
We have just learned with indignation of your decision to de-Bretonize the Coat-Edern school by naming it after the artist Rosa Bonheur and that you intend to continue down this path by de-Bretonizing another school in your municipality: Kroas-Saliou.
Once again, it is the commendable desire to feminize place names that is at the root of a de-Bretonization. Three years ago, the President of the departmental council, Mael de Calan, renamed the Kerhallet college to honor the artist Joséphine Baker against the wishes of her family, for whom cultural diversity has meaning.
Have you considered what the name Coat-Edern means and what it could represent for the students? A meaning and a point of reference for them that could not fail to connect with their own culture, language, and identity.
Have you wondered how many educational institutions bear the name Rosa Bonheur in France? There are almost everywhere!
Are you not aware that Bretons are attached to their toponymy in the Breton language, and that they express this loudly by organizing conferences, appealing to judges, and even to UNESCO, which recently reminded us that names in the Breton language are part of the intangible cultural heritage of humanity?
How can you throw our Breton language to the dogs?
Is there a single person on the municipal council to raise this concern? Or must we conclude that Breton deculturation has reached a point of no return and that the elected officials of our countryside no longer feel any belonging to Brittany and make the same decisions as in Limoges or Juvisy-sur-Orge?
And your municipality is at level 2 of the Ya d'ar brezhoneg charter! But what is the purpose of this charter then? It is to the great leveling that you contribute through your decisions.
Those who know where they come from and respect their roots are best able to open up to those who come from elsewhere. Education begins with knowing where one comes from.
The worst part of this matter, and we touch on the secrets of the pedagogy of national education, is that students were asked to contribute to their own deculturation by working on the name of this deserving artist, just like in the good old days when a student had to hand over a wooden shoe to anyone who uttered a word in the Breton language.
“Rosa Bonheur will help them better observe and better know their environment,” you said? Thanks to you and national education, our children will know how to better observe chickens and cows. But what about their history and culture, Mr. Mayor?
Is it really more useful to know how to observe a cow than to know where one comes from?
But have you even discussed with the children what Coat-Edern means and how long this toponym has existed?
With dismay, we note that the hemorrhage continues, having lasted so long already, and that our language, which owes much to toponymy, is in great danger of disappearing.
The Koun Breizh association laments this ongoing duplicity, which means that despite all the fine parlor speeches, our elected officials continue to de-Bretonize without any questioning. We think of the mixed union Mégalis, whose president is Loig Chesnais-Girard, and which has been contributing massively to de-Bretonization for years, in the name of fiber!
Breton men and women are outraged by the lightness with which some officials sacrifice their language and culture.
Finally, allow us to say that you will not help children by educating them in such a disconnected manner. By contributing to their uprooting, you condemn them to suffer the law of all forces.
You will respond that the name does not disappear, as a street in the municipality is named Coat-Edern. We care little, since any retreat is no longer permissible today, given the tragic situation in which the Breton language finds itself.
We ask you to correct this mistake. You could add the name "Rosa Bonheur" to Coat-Edern so that the name of the school would not disappear.
Hoping that you will feel addressed by this letter, please believe, Mr. Mayor, in our deepest respect.
For Koun Breizh
Yvon Ollivier
06 68 56 67 69
