One man’s fight to name his children what he liked

Well, quite a lot, Will, actually, as most Bretons would have you know.

And that’s why Jean-Jacques Manrot-Le Goarnig received a special tribute in Ouest-France, our regional paper, when he died recently at the age of 86.

Yes, he fought long and hard for Breton parents’ right to give their son or daughter a Breton first name. He had 12 children himself and they were at the heart of his battle, which all started in 1946 when he went to his local town hall to declare the birth of his first-born, Garlone. The functionary refused to register her name, and when Jean-Jacques also refused to choose a ‘proper’ name from the official list, the jobsworth just entered Mireille, the mother’s name, instead.

The same scene was played out again almost annually for Patrig, Yann, Katelle, Morgann, Gwendal and so on, but by the time Ardraboran came along, the functionary had had enough and packed him off to the aliens’ office at the State prosecution service.

For years, six of the children were effectively pariahs as far as the administration was concerned, having no birth certificates, no papers, no legal existence or any other rights; nor could their parents claim any family allowances for them.

So Jean-Jacques battled all the way up to the United Nations and then on to the European Court of Justice (ECJ) in La Haye. Yes, your Bretons are a quiet, unassuming lot, but don’t be fooled by that: when they get the bit between their teeth, ma doué! Or mon dieu! as the French would put it. The ECJ finally decided to give the children special identity cards as ‘European citizens of Breton nationality’.

In fact, the affair even created a diplomatic flare-up in the French-speaking world across the Atlantic. General de Gaulle had just made his famous speech – well, famous here, anyway – crying ‘Vive le Québec libre!’ but the Canadians sent him packing, too. ‘Listen! You look after your Bretons and we’ll look after our Québecois,’ they told him.

Finally, in 1964 the republican calendar listing compulsory, officially approved names was dropped, and Bretons weren’t the only ones to take advantage of that, either. No, I’ve just had an inky-fingered trawl through the birth columns in the local paper this last month (honestly, the things I do for you, eh?) so let’s give our félicitations to the proud parents of Joey, Eden, Hugo, Taïs, Darenn, Emy, Anouk, Léana, Naëlla, Lucas, Lena, Johnny and even one, well, Elvis, I’m afraid.

And perhaps we should also extend our belated condolences following the deaths of Mauricette, Pierre, Paulette, Jean, Michel, Marie, Gaston, Anne-Claire, Bernardette, André, Henri and Marcelle, who were all born before the 1964 watershed.

But the town hall can still veto any name it feels might be an unfair burden on the child, and if you really insist, your only recourse then is legal action. Mr and Mrs Renault’s daughter Mégane was nearly three years old by the time the court of appeal ruled that she could keep hers.

And once you do get it down in black and white, that’s that, for better or worse. La Patronne only discovered a week or two before our wedding that, officially, she wasn’t in fact called Anne-Hélène at all, but Anne Hélène, without the hyphen, and there’s absolutely nothing she can do about it. I still married her, though.

IF that all sounds so impossibly different-age, don’t forget that it was only in 1965 that the government repealed the Matrimonial Law of 1804 and wives obtained the right to manage their own property, open their own bank accounts and get a job without seeking their husband’s permission first.

They finally gained equal rights as parents in 1970, but they’re still tapping their feet, waiting for equal pay and promotion prospects at work.

And although it is Mme M who looks after all the Masstairmann family paperwork and accounts, bless her, things like our income tax declarations, insurance and the mortgage are only valid if they’ve been signed by the nominal head of the household, aka the husband, aka moi!

THE 74-year-old Albert Chevalier (like most popular Alberts, he is known to one and all as Bébert, pronounced Bebbair) still hankers after the old days, though, and the other weekend he played the accordion at some golden wedding anniversary celebrations down in southern Brittany, just as he did when the couple got married way back in 1963.

In fact, next year he’ll be celebrating 60 years of matrimonial music-making at around 3,000 weddings, and in the presence of the first two he ever did, in 1954, as well.

Bébert’s Temps Passé memories conjure up a grainy, postcard picture of rural France just after the war when the weddings took place in a meadow on a Tuesday, the farm-workers’ day off. A cow or calf was spit-roasted for the occasion and the whole village was invited, each guest bringing his own cutlery and crockery, as well as table and chairs.

The day would start at the groom’s house, and then the cortège would set off on foot behind the accordion to the bride’s house. If that meant hiking anything up to ten kilometres across the countryside, and then the same again to get to the church, well so be it.

And all along the way, then in the church and after at the wedding breakfast, they sang. And then they danced.

Some young couples searching for their roots still ask Bébert to play at their weddings, but that culture has just about disappeared now. Never mind, at the golden anniversary the other Saturday the bells were ringing at 2.30 when he got going. All together now: ‘It’ll soon be 10 o’clock, ma belle, dry your eyes.’

Okay, so the times don’t match, but time itself seemed to stand still for the older people there.

AND everybody was on foot in the old days, too, so no one had to worry about driving or speeding. Last month I mentioned ‘cannonballs’, the new speed road rallies from the UK now hurtling around France’s motorways, and this month this Audi R8 on the way down to the Le Mans 24-hour race was booked for doing ‘at least 250 kph’ on the 130 kph A28 between Rouen and Alençon in Normandy. That ‘at least’ is unusual, but the gendarmes’ radars don’t go any higher, apparently.

Like the chap in my column last month, his car was impounded pending the court case in a couple of months or so, he had to pay a 1,500 euro deposit against the future fine, and his licence was seized so he can’t drive in France again till the judge gives it back.

Oh, and it was a hire car, too, so the bill for that will presumably be ticking over as well and may soar even higher if the court orders its confiscation.

Nor was he alone, because six other Brits picked up speeding tickets on the A28 that same weekend.

A BIT closer to home, the gendarmes at St Malo’s gare maritime have warned that the drivers of fast cars arriving on the Condor or Brittany Ferries may now be asked to play the Breton bagpipes (blow in the breathaliser) and take a drugs test while being read the riot act from the more chilling pages of the Code de la Route.

But don’t go taking it personally, eh. No, ‘the fear of the gendarme’ has always been the official State policy for law and order here.

Kenavo!