Identity, generally speaking is a perception, and when one hears Bretons speaking about their particular identity, one gets the impression that one is listening to the retelling of a myth. This comes firstly from the language in which the matter is couched ; in fact, those questioned are quick to use the indicative present and the third person singular, which results in sentences like : "the Breton is such and such" or "the Breton is this, that or the other". The words are very assertive, just like the myth. Furthermore, some recurrent themes in the interviews come straight out of the domain of the myth. This is the case of "the Breton soul", "the Breton mind" " the eternal identity of the Breton", "the heart", etc. Finally, there are myth-like features in what, according to the people I met, defines the particularities of "the Breton mind". These are, in fact "Celticness", i.e. race, soil and climate.

     This mythical dimension of what is said concerning the Breton identity does not rule out emotion. Far from it - there is a good deal of lively emotion in all the interviews.

     The characteristics of "Breton-ness" that come out of the interviews are :

nearness to nature
personality traits : the Breton is seen as primitive, rough, rebellious, serious, hardworking, emotional, intuitive, etc.
habits : the Breton is often described as having an "antiquated way of behaving", an likewise a family spirit, etc.

     I have studied a number of works of 19th century French literature by Flaubert, Balzac and Victor Hugo, and placed them alongside works by Breton writers of the 19th and 20th centuries. It turns out that in both groups there are to be found the same themes as in the interviews. The Breton authors, however, prize the features attributed to the Bretons, whereas the French writers denigrate them. For example the unsociability comes across as a form of purity in the Breton writers, whereas, for the French authors, it is nothing more than foolishness.

     Moreover, the further we go back in history, the more vigorous the contrast, particular during the Middle Ages, when Brittany was in conflict with France.

     How are these perceptions to be interpreted ? It should be noticed first and foremost that there are some remarkable points of contact between the images of Bretons, women and Blacks.

     Taking the Blacks as an example, it can be seen from the works of Leopold Sedar Senghor and others who have worked in this field, that they are seen as emotional, intuitive, rebellious and near to nature : the black warrior is thought of as having "a feminine sensitivity". In "Blackness", then, we come across the same elements that we have found in "Breton-ness". How might this be ? In these three cases we are dealing with underdogs. Now, when it is a matter of collective identity, and the construction of a positive self-image, it is useful, if not indispensable, to put oneself apart from another groups to which one ascribes a negative identity. I am therefore putting forward the hypothesis that the features of the Bretons are those which have been given to them by French authors : the negative version of "Frenchness". These features were later picked up and re-interpreted by the Breton authors, in the same way as was the Black stereotype, the reverse of "European-ness", by authors of the Black experience. The feminist movements, in contrast, rather than reworking female stereotypes, combat them.

     To come back to the Breton example, how are these perceptions and stereotypes spread ? How come they are so strong and at the same time taken on board by the Bretons themselves ? It seems to me that socialization has an absolutely fundamental role to play in this regard, whether it be in the context of family or school. I have studied the History and Geography textbooks from the end of the 19th century to the 1960s, and there is a great consistency in the way that the stereotype is passed down the line.

     Confronted by the stereotype or the perceptions - and by their potentially negative features - the Bretons can adopt a number of different stances.