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bescape from Spanish police and soldiers. But there is little doubt bthat the day of the French Basque is coming. bIn April 1980 nine Corsican terrorist blasts rocked Paris band Nice; in January of that year armed members of the Cor- bsican People’s Union (UPC) seized a hotel in Ajaccio, Corsica’s bcapital; hundreds of bombings attributed to the Corsican Na- btional Liberation Front have destroyed fuel tanks, freight sta- btions, and offices. Moderates demand “autonomy,” angrily bpointing to the French policy of dumping former Algerian set- btlers, known as pieds noirs, in Corsica. Said Lucian Alforsi, one of bthe leaders of the Corsican national movement: “If it goes on blike this, we shall be a minority in our own homeland.” The b“extremists,” who blew up an Air France Boeing 707 airliner at bAjaccio Airport, are more honest; they openly call for Corsican bIndependence. bThe French government will hear of neither independence bnor autonomy and has vowed “to protect the unity of the Re- bpublic.” But police are killed in Corsica, terrorism has reached bthe mainland, and the Corsicans wish the French well in the bunity of France, but they claim that they are not French and not bpart of that unity. They are different; they want their state. bAt the end of the fifteenth century, the French annexed bBrittany. Today, 500 years later, the demand for autonomy is bthe loudest it has been in decades. Some 2.7 million Bretons are bstirring, and one day before the visit of French President Valé- bry Giscard d’Estaing in 1977, bombs smashed government of- bfices and the radio-TV license fee center in Redon and Rennes. bIn October of that year, a Breton bomb knocked out a TV relay bstation. bThe Bretons are demanding “autonomy” as a first step. bThey are demanding that the Breton language—a Celtic lan- bguage related to Gaelic and Welsh—be taught in the public bschools. In Brittany today “Uncle Tom-ism” is dying a linger- bing death. Says the sixty-five-year-old mayor of Cast: “Better bthey learn English or German. What interest is there in learning ba language they will never use?” Young Bretons, like folk singer bAlan Stivell, sneer at the “Uncle Pierres.” These young Bretons bare pushing an ethnic sense of identity. “Our grandparents were bproud when we spoke French,” said a newspaper editor in bQuimper. “Now our children are proud when they speak bBreton.”
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