Born in 1940, he made numerous stays in Sainte-Marine, in southern Finistère, between 1948 and 1954, where he was marked by nature and simple life. Invited in the François Busnel program, La Grande Librairie on France 5 , on March 11, he made very strong comments about Brittany. Asked about his origins, Le Clézio, born in Nice, from a Breton family emigrated to Mauritius, who grew up in the south of France, then in Africa and London, affirmed his feeling of being Breton . "Brittany is limitless," he said. "This country is so different from other countries ... If I had to choose a country to which I would be attached by something that looked like a root, it would be that country ...", he says. He also spoke of language: “It is a great tragedy, it is an important drama when a language disappears. I very much regret the disappearance of the Breton language, as it was knowingly organized by the French Ministry of Education, which punished the children who spoke Breton at school while they spoke Breton at home. This language which, when I was ten years old, was spoken by everyone, we heard it everywhere. It is music, the Breton language. It is a music very different from the music of the French language. This Breton sound is lacking now. When you go to Brittany, you no longer hear this language. It is as if a storm had blown over Brittany and scattered the words… ”
Brief published in Bretons magazine n ° 163 of April 2020
Breton song - The Child and the War , Jean-Marie Le Clézio, Gallimard, 160 p., € 16.50
This article is produced by Bretons magazine and hosted by 20 Minutes.
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