According to a large number of interviewees, "there used to be a negative identity, the Bretons were ashamed of themselves, but that's in the past now, it's over." Generally speaking, it was men who voiced this sort of attitude. In contrast, a number of women tackling the question attempted to say the same thing, but unwittingly let their emotion show. For example, the woman called "Hélène" in the interviews said to me right from the start, "The fact of being Breton ? Oh, that doesn't mean much, except that I've got a Breton accent and I'm forever being told so." Later on, during the interview, we find out that she is tormented by her accent. Like her, a certain number of interviewees (only about forty years old at the time of writing), have gone through some sort of nightmare simply because their mother tongue was Breton, or because they had a strong accent.

     This type of symbolic submissive behaviour can just as well be studied by comparing the way in which images which are hard to bear, such as the "drunken Breton" or the "stubborn Breton", depending on the socioprofessional background, sex or origin of the person questioned.

     As far as the "drunken" stereotype of the Breton is concerned, several interviewees reject it, saying, "No, the Bretons aren't drunkards, they're people who know how to live life to the full and how to enjoy themselves." Others, a little less contentious, say, "alcoholism may have been a problem for the Bretons in the past" or " maybe it's something you'll find in other parts of Brittany". Then there are those Bretons who say "Yep, it's true, we're alcoholics." And who comes up with this ? Women, farmers and Lower Bretons. It is the same where stubbornness is concerned : "the Bretons are a tenacious, pugnacious people who carry things through to the end". But others affirm : " yes, that's right, we're obstinate and blinkered" and again they are farmers, Lower Bretons and women for the most part.

     The negative identity is still there as a stratum in the consciousness, but it is now, as most of the interviewees said, a thing of the past.

     The Bretons have tried to transform that which, in their self-image, was intolerable. We shall examine two examples of this fight against negative portrayals : Breton agriculture and Breton language. They are, it is true, two very different cases, but in each both men and women are combating a negative image, and in each they likewise come upon traps.

     French 19th century novels show a negative and antiquated picture of Breton farmers. Since the Second World War, the latter have fought to increase their productivity and to improve the performance of Breton agriculture. Agricultural production in Brittany, from the sixties to the nineties, has made a spectacular leap forward, without a reduction in the high rural population density or the solid social fabric in the Breton countryside. In the current climate of unemployment, this is a precious card. Yet, despite this considerable progress, which has put the Bretons into an agricultural lead, Breton farmers are caught between two stools.

     On the one hand they are confronted by a crisis of overproduction at European and world level which weakens them, reduces their income and undermines their farms, and on the other they are up against an ecological crisis with, particularly, a high concentration of nitrates in the waters of Brittany. So, wanting to fight for their dignity and to modernise their means of production, the Breton farmers are trapped. This is all the more so since, at the time when they were portrayed as "antiquated", the dominant trend was "rationalisation", which tended to be deified. And now that they are being portrayed as over-producers, the word of the moment is "nature". So Breton farmers remain behind the times by one step.

     The combat on behalf of the Breton language - not unlike that to modernise agriculture - has had its results. Thus, where in 1976 there was no provision of bilingual education for children at all, it is now, in 1997, available for some 3,000, and to these can be added another 19,000 who, although not in a bilingual stream, have Breton lessons. Then again the Breton language is becoming more socially "visible": Breton signpost are being placed on the way into and out of towns. The progress cannot be denied.

     At the same time there is a decline in the use of the language in the rural areas year on year. Added to this, it can be seen that the social groups who tend to use Breton are not sending their children to bilingual schools, which are more often attended by children from the executive or middle classes, who are not traditional Breton users, but sometimes learn for their own pleasure. All this shows that there has been some sort of breaking up, and the interviews I carried out confirm this. Indeed there are many native Breton-speakers who see no reason at all for putting up bilingual signs at the entrance- and exit-points of towns. They even have difficulty in understanding the language used by the new Breton-speakers. So there is now a paradox, in that those who have been fighting for the Breton language are risking, through their efforts to re-establish it, the entrenchment of the native speakers in their complexes ! More than once have I heard perfectly good Breton-speakers say ; "Well, we can't understand the Breton programmes on television, but that must be because we speak some sort of dialect."

     So the fight for symbolic inversion is riddled with pitfalls despite which identity has been tending all the same towards being a genuine resource for some years.

     In the context of overall economic crisis, unemployment and anxiety, the people I interviewed perceive the fact of being Breton as comparatively advantageous. Being Breton equates to being known. The Bretons are aware that they are known throughout the world, that their reputation is for the most part good (this has been confirmed by opinion polls), and that their produce too is well regarded. So, from an economic point of view, the Breton identity is starting to appear worthwhile : for the company bosses, farmers and fishermen I met it is becoming a lure in itself. The eye is drawn by labels on agricultural or marine products. One does one's best to please, and sells one's charm. Thus one manager in a co-operative union explained to me : "We pay for our large foreign customers to come and visit Brittany so that they can see the beauty of our countryside and then buy more of our products because they associate them with the countryside."

     This can bring about new contacts. Breton employers in general are starting to lean seriously towards Breton culture and identity. Whether it be by organising themselves under the "Produit en Bretagne" ["Produced in Brittany"] label, through the institute of geostrategic deliberation that has been set up in a small village in central Brittany, or by the "Thirty Club" which brings together the biggest Breton industrialists in an association whose name alludes to Breton independence, one gets the feeling that Breton employers are much interested in Breton culture. Could this go any further ? What feedback might the employers get from the Breton cultural movement, which is largely made up of middle level salary earners, primary and secondary school-teachers, who are traditionally left-wing ? Could they imitate the Catalan strategy ? Whatever, it is not out of the question.

     At the same time, might not this generalised attraction of Breton identity be seen as a sign of withdrawal and of tribal confinement ?