Brittany, officially the Breton Republic, is a state in the northwest of former France. With the heart of France ruined by the strikes and later meltdowns of its nuclear plants, many of its disparate regions would cling to survival by forming close ties to their neighbors. In the case of Brittany and Normandy, this produced an alliance of necessity with the surviving governments of Ireland , Scotland, and the Channel Islands - an relationship that would eventually evolve into the Celtic Alliance.
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| Anthem | "Bro Gozh ma Zadoù - Old Land of Our Fathers" | ||||
| Capital (and largest city) |
Quimper | ||||
| Other cities | Roscoff, Vannes, Granville, Dinan, Guingamp, Saint-Brieuc | ||||
| Language official |
French, Breton (English civil services available) | ||||
| others | Gasçon, Dutch, Vietnamese, German, Portuguese, Spanish, Arabic, Chinese, and others | ||||
| Religion main |
Catholicism | ||||
| others | Atheism, Islam and others | ||||
| Ethnic Groups main |
Bretons, French, Normans, Jerrais | ||||
| others | Irish, British, Jerseyan, Portuguese, Spanish, Arabic, Chinese, Vietnamese and others and others | ||||
| Demonym | Bretons, Normans, French | ||||
| Government | Parliamentary republic | ||||
| Legislature | Parliament | ||||
| President of the Republic | |||||
| Prime Minister | |||||
| Area | 34,029 km² | ||||
| Population | 900,000 | ||||
| Established | 20 March 1986 | ||||
| Independence | from France | ||||
| Currency | Cel | ||||
| Organizations | Celtic Alliance, Atlantic Defense Community | ||||
History[]
Doomsday[]
Soviet bombers dropped nuclear weapons in the vicinities of Brest, Nantes and Rennes on 26 September 1983, destroying the port and naval base located at Brest, the military bases to the west of Rennes, and the major metropolitan area of Nantes. Lorient had also seen the city and submarine fleet that hosted it wiped off the map. In Normandy, the naval arsenal of Cherbourg-en-Contentin would be destroyed, ending France's ability to produce or maintain nuclear submarines. The blasts in turn caused a crisis among the intact population in the environs of the nuclear power station at Brennilis; However, the plant had already been shut down - in August 15, 1975, two explosions slightly damaged a turbine and destroyed a telephone circuit. The Liberation Front of Brittany claimed responsibility. In 1979 the group destroyed electrical lines going from the plant to the grid, and with there being no grid to supply power to, the plant shut down. This was the only time in history that a terrorist group successfully stopped operation of a nuclear power plant. However, the sealing away of the plant had not yet been completed by Doomsday (being on track to be finished by the summer of 1985), so the worried nearby crew (and their ever-ticking Geiger Counters) would have a concern of their own over the backdrop of the devastation wrought by the bombs across northwest France.
The bombings destroyed all French governments above the departmental level. Local councils tried to reassert some measure of authority in the parts of Brittany not directly bombed, but conditions made it impossible to maintain order. All of France was racked in the next months by hunger, population displacement, and the collapse of the central government. Through all the suffering, Brittany managed to hold together as a state entity, though it could do little to help most people, especially the large numbers of hungry and homeless people who steadily drifted in from further east. Some surviving officials of Brittany's regional administration reconvened in the relative isolation of Saint-Malo, a small city on the Channel north of Rennes.
Saint-Malo in 1984 - the walled city would serve as a bastion of security in the face of perpetual uncertainty.
Darkest Winter, Fallow Harvest[]
In all, a majority of Brittany's people not killed in the blasts survived the first brutal winter. There was still enough food to go around. The region had been a breadbasket for all of France before the war, with its surplus-for-export dying on the vine, there was still enough left over to break even during the darkest winter. The true problem would emerge the following "spring" (which began 3 months later than usual, in May!). The crops that were harvested were often malnourished owing to a collapse in all fertilizer imports, necessitating manure, ashes and fish guts to supplement the ailing plants. When the harvest of 1984 came, all but a few pockets of crops featured the odd mutated plant, a swath of sickly, smaller plants and even some fields, closer to Rennes and Brest, whose green-brown coloration and brittle stalks on the verge of snapping made many people hesitate to eat them.
Fishermen would have better luck -- although there had been a palpable decrease in sunlight (and thus surface temperature of the waters, meaning fewer fish), they had far fewer mouths to feed in the big cities, which meant that whatever their nets would muster up would usually be enough to feed their own towns. Trade with the Channel Islands - usually barter for whatever one had and the other didn't - would usually supplement the nutritional deficiencies in both populations. However, as gasoline began to be exhausted entirely, the situation would grow dire, and the winter of November 1984 - March 1985 would claim many tens of thousands of lives that the first winter had spared. As the snow dissipated again in mid March of 1985, the rump French government operating out of Normandy would contact the Irish, begging for oil in return for its cornmeal, fish and whatever else they could offer.
Fall of Le Mans[]
For more information, see History of France.
The French Republic had explored various "business continuity plans" and similar emergency measures throughout the Cold War, acting on them with limited success. Various bomb shelters and fallout bunkers had been constructed around the country, with several in Paris, and others in smaller cities such as Quimper, Rouen, and reinforced military redoubts, such as the bunker under the Taverny air base and the command center of France's nuclear submarine fleet at Lorient. Of all of these, only the smaller city of Quimper retained its fallout shelter, which dated back to 1955. 12 meters below the city, surviving officials from General Intelligence, the Navy, and the regional emergency administration coordinated the best they could over the crowded radio waves. For civilians fleeing the firestorm in the Ile-de-France, Le Mans was the closest and most intact rallying point for surviving officials that managed to flee the environs of Paris or found themselves outside of the blast zone on Doomsday. With the Navy and General Intelligence regrouping at Quimper, and Le Mans hosting several dozen magistrates, representatives, and the acting President, these two authorities attempted to shore what resources that could for all of France north of Paris.
With the Loire city of Le Mans hosting the last remnants of the French Republic civilian government in the aftermath of the destruction of Paris, the holdouts braced themselves for the next brutal winter to come. Some surviving authorities from Rennes were meanwhile trying to restore civil services from the fortified coastal city of Saint-Malo. Much of Normandy was about to be overwhelmed by the hungry and injured from the ruined cities of Cherbourg, Caen and Rouen. Those who had enough fuel to make their way out of the Ile-De-France tried to get as far west as they could, hoping to avoid the worst of the fallout in the countryside.
Regular contact was easier with the Channel Islands and British isles than with other parts of France. The Irish government had survived intact along with parts of Wales and a regional provisional government in Southern England. The destruction of Cherbourg en Contentin forced remaining ferries and fishing vessels to dock further west and south at Saint-Malo and Granville respectively.
The emergency French government at Le Mans would not survive the second winter. Too much of the population had radiation sickness, with its hospitals and makeshift triads swelled by two million refugees camped out throughout the prefecture. During the "winter" month of March - the harshest and coldest of the year so far - malnutrition hit a critical mass. Any able-bodied men throughout the department assailed the remaining food reserves. In the midst of the chaos, fire claimed much of the overpopulated city, killing the acting President of the mainland in the process. When the dust settled, tens of thousand lay dead and the heart of the city consumed by fire. Surviving officials could not come to a consensus on where to relocate to, with the largest departing first to the city of Poitou, while a smaller faction set up administration at Clermont-Ferrand would outlast them. Burgundy's leading junta seceded outright, and Lille ironically became the de facto capital for the even more shattered southern half of Belgium. During this time, many of the financial and political elite that comprised the entourage of the 1983-1983 Emergency administration sought asylum in Ireland, the last unaffected nation of Western Europe.
The Navy and General Intelligence HQ at Quimper became the last bastion of the State's authority in Northwestern France. Although the Saint-Malo government lost ground to various Breton independentist groups in the years after Le Mans' decline, they still nominally answered to the authority of Quimper, which in turn was the negotiating power with France's few remaining allies in the Channel Islands and the intact Republic of Ireland.
A Compromise[]
With the fall of France being all but official, the remaining authorities at Quimper were left bereft of purpose. Although the coastal patrols had become a self-sustaining endeavor by men and women from local communities, a generational and cultural divide was gripping Brittany. In the chaos and starvation of the aftermath, many people of Brittany felt abandoned by their government and disillusioned with the French state. Furthermore, survivors from inland France continued to arrive, together with a small but growing stream of English refugees; they provoked mistrust and scapegoating among the locals. Many now turned to the Breton Liberation Front and splinter groups formed after Doomsday. Many neighborhoods and cities were now coming under the direct rule of such groups. Even Quimper proper was dotted with graffiti demarcating entry to "Free Brittany" with "penalties" for speaking French or waving the French flag. Similar movements were finding success in the French Basque Country and Corsica.
The outnumbered authorities of Quimper acknowledged the situation. Restoring order on the Breton Peninsula would require the cooperation of all of the many factions: the French state and military, the would-be regional administration in Saint-Malo, the aggrieved locals, and, of course, the outside survivors who were provoking their ire. What remained of the Quimper and Saint-Malo administrations began to combine their operations from the start of 1987, giving the French state a stronger bargaining position. A large enough cross-section of the nationalist-run towns likewise saw the need to cooperate with the government, and the different sides negotiated throughout 1988, beginning to cooperate meanwhile to keep Brittany's internal roads safe and open.
They achieved a unity government on August 18, 1988, meeting four of the six key demands brought forth by the Breton Liberation Front and other parties. The Breton language was made co-official, and the government was to exclude several General Intelligence officials accused of summary executions from 1984-1986. French, however, would remain the language of the military, and the constitution was to follow a strict emulation of the Fifth Republic. Certain Breton parties would also be excluded from the military and civilian police. Migrants from elsewhere in France were to enjoy full equality, though English newcomers were for now excluded. Quimper remained the capital, which was in the interest of both parties. Thus, the last office of the French Republic on the mainland became the capital of the "Breton Republic", though it continued to act in the name of the French state for several more years.
Birth of the Alliance[]
For more information, see History of the Celtic Alliance.
With the center of France obliterated by the myriad of nuclear meltdowns which consumed its heartland, the disparate regions of the north, south, east and west relied entirely on their own institutions. In that vein, Brittany began to become engrossed in its own identity and institutions, and its cultural distinctiveness became a source of strength. While a sizable majority of the people spoke only French, they could still celebrate and identify with expressions of Breton culture.
Adjacent areas of Normandy, likewise cut off from the land routes to the rest of France, now fell under the influence of Brittany. There, Norman culture could fill a similar role, spurred on by increased contacts with the Channel Islands, whose traditional Jèrriais dialect is mutually intelligible with Norman French.
The rump government working to reestablish control over parts of Brittany and Normandy was now in frequent communication with the was then called as the "Irish-Scottish Alliance". With France gone, Ireland and Scotland were Brittany's main source of outside goods and information. Scottish fuel became a lifeline for the coastal French settlements, with Norman and Breton authorities scrounging up anything they could find to trade for more of it. Likewise, the Channel Islands equally depended on the Norman-Bretons for food; the islands too had begun to depend on Ireland more than on England.
In 1993, Ireland and Scotland came together to create new, permanent institutions to manage the joint affairs of their growing alliance. Representatives from Brittany were involved in the negotiations, together with Wales and the Isle of Man; though the latter three did not join immediately, they all recognized that they would have to depend on one another in the postwar world. As these comprised five of the six traditional Celtic Nations, the alliance's Commission chose a new name: the Celtic Alliance. They adopted a celtist flag designed in the 50s by Breton activist Robert Berthelier. Brittany, together with Mann, became a full member before the end of the year.
The Celtic Alliance was not universally popular. Some remarked that the phantom of the once-attempted Franco-British Union had materialized at last, while some who did not identify with Breton culture were skeptical of its attempt at a new regional identity. Others cast doubts on the feasibility of this unprecedented political arrangement. In any case, the birth of the Celtic Alliance was a watershed moment in the recovery of northwestern France.
Brittany in the Alliance[]
The unity government and membership in the Alliance brought stability. Brittany had been one of the hardest-hit parts of France, but it now entered an era of growth. 1995 was the first year of net positive births in Brittany since before Doomsday; the Breton-aligned parts of Normandy caught up by 1999. The republic's physical footprint grew slowly and steadily as outlying hamlets came under the state's protection, new fields were cultivated, and wastes surrounding the nuclear strikes became well-patrolled exclusion zones. By the late 00s, the republic's secure territory encompassed most of the old Brittany region west of Rennes and the west end of the region of Normandy.
Nevertheless, Brittany occupied an uneasy place in an alliance that, despite its name, was otherwise firmly part of the Anglo-Saxon world. This cultural and geopolitical difference meant that significant numbers of Bretons were skeptical of the Alliance from the beginning, beyond the right-wing parties active throughout most of the C.A. Nations.
One source of worry was the participation of England in the alliance. A large English population would dilute Brittany's influence and increase the sense that it played only a marginal part. Southern England around 1990 had a relationship with the growing Alliance similar to Brittany's. Both republics cooperated closely with Ireland and accepted forms of medical aid. Had Southern England joined with Ireland and Scotland as a full ally, many more Bretons likely would have opposed membership. Instead, the south positioned itself as an independent republic in 1992 and distanced itself from the new C.A. institutions. This cleared the way for Brittany to fully join.
Other, smaller, English communities joined the Celtic Alliance already in the mid-90s, and the C.A.'s English territory grew steadily over the following decades. This kept fears alive that the alliance was transforming into a British superstate in which Brittany was an irrelevant appendage.
The military formed another source of anxiety. The Celtic Defence Forces stemmed from the integration of the Irish and surviving UK militaries, and their merger had been both gradual (because they spent years jointly keeping the peace in Northern Ireland) and smooth (because of a common language and because historic British influence over the Irish military facilitated their integration). But doing the same in Brittany faced obstacles. Merging an essentially French armed force into the CDF would be logistically more difficult. The question of language remained unanswered. Finally, the idea was unpopular and risked giving fuel to anti-CA movements. A compromise left the Breton military distinct. It would operate under the control of the Breton government within the republic's territory. The president of the Alliance had the authority to activate it for operations outside Brittany, where it would operate in accordance with C.A. policy.
A series of external wars in the 2000s complicated this political landscape. Anti-CA parties protested the 2004 First Sicily War, but opposition was not universal because the cause of open trade in the Mediterranean could be seen as promoting French interests. Many CA skeptics who aligned with French national identity found themselves supporting it, while some who emphasized Breton identity, normally supporters of the Alliance, opposed it. A rapid succession of wars around 2010 - in North America, in Scotland, and back in the Mediterranean - provoked a more general war-weariness in Brittany, as it did elsewhere in the Celtic Alliance. Breton personnel accompanied the CDF to Canada to help them interact with the French-speaking population, but the Breton military was deployed in large numbers only in the Mediterranean. This again prevented calls to secede from reaching too high a pitch.
Government[]
From a collection of villages united loosely by provisional leaders in a bunker, Brittany evolved into a republic on the French model. Overall it is a unitary state, though the municipalities have somewhat more power than they did under the former republic.
Economy[]
Brittany's position on the Atlantic gives the country prime access to transatlantic trade and foreign industrial products. Its people therefore enjoy a more modern lifestyle than most others in France.
Brittany is a net exporter of agricultural products, including cereals and pork, of moderate importance. Its chief customers are the Channel Islands, the inland of former France and other parts of the Euro-Atlantic Fringe. The largest item that passes through the port is bulk foodgrain. Hydrocarbon and construction materials are also conspicuous by their significant presence here. Several thousand passengers also pass through the ports of Brittany and Normandy on a daily basis on account of non-commercial travel. Shipbuilding and ship repair are also important activities in Brittany. Normandy and Brittany continue to use the Cel for their own finances.
Culture[]
Although it is a part of the political, economic, and military aspects of the Alliance, it has been somewhat alienated from its cultural apparatuses, which remain focused around Irish and British issues and interests. For example, its Catholic Archdiocese is not a member of the Celtic Church. Breton Catholics follow the Rio de Janiero-based Vatican.
Breton identity remains important to the culture of the republic. The Breton language is secondary to French in numbers of speakers, although in the departments of Brittany proper its percentage has increased. Likewise, tens of thousands of English refugees remain in Brittany as a consequence of both wider trends in the European diaspora and its time in the Celtic Alliance. Breton cuisine remains known for both its rich seafood and Breton expatriates in the French diaspora are often known for having introduced the hardy staple of galettes (a crepe-like buckwheat based flour with ham and cheese) to the palates of their new home countries.
Frequent travel between the Channel Islands and coastal Brittany has seen frequent cultural exchange between the two. Many Bretons work in the Channel Islands and vice versa. As such, bilingualism, and increasingly trilingualism is common amongst younger generations, especially in informal speech or slang.
Demographics[]
With the destruction of the largest cities in Brittany on Doomsday, the new largest metropolitan hubs in Brittany are Saint-Malo, Vannes, Saint-Breuc, Guingamp, with the capital of Quimper and its port city of Concarneau being the largest conurbation at over 100,000 people. Today, the median Breton lives in a town with less than 30,000 people. Norman portions of Brittany are contrasted by being concentrated in the area between Granville and the ruins of Caen, with the battered city slowly returning to life after Alliance reconstruction efforts. Many smaller towns and villages in the interior grew in population from survivors, such as Uzel, Guingamp, Gourin, Granville, Pontivy and others.
International relations[]
The Celtic Alliance for the most part represents Brittany in world affairs, including in the League of Nations. Like other C.A. member nations, Brittany has a limited ability to represent itself in some contexts. This includes the Atlantic Defense Community: due to Brittany's distinct military structure, it was given a separate seat on the Atlantic Council and is considered a member in its own right. Brittany also has engaged in bilateral relations with Southern England and some of the survivor states of the French mainland.
The people of Brittany are less enthusiastic than many of their neighbors at the prospect of French reunification. The republic has not committed to joining a restored France, but the issue is the topic of constant, lively debate.
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