« Il est défendu de parler breton et de cracher à terre »French Government face legal action after banning parents from giving their child a Breton nameMélissa Yana and Étienne Pichancourt have been told they can’t name their newborn son Fañch, the equivalent of Francis or Ffransis which is associated with prominent Breton writers and language advocates.
The decision by France’s public prosecutor comes despite the country’s highest civil court upholding the right of another Breton family to give their child the same name in 2019. Yana and Pichancourt were initially refused permission to use the name, which includes an accent which does not exist in French, when they went to register the birth.
The mayor of Lorient, where Fañch was born on June 17, then intervened to approve the name and the couple received official identity documents with their son’s correct name. But they have now received a letter from France’s public prosecutor which says he “cannot legally do anything other than proceed with the administrative correction of the error in the writing of your child’s first name.”
France’s national assembly passed a law on regional languages in 2021, which included the right to use accents like the ‘tildé’ in the name Fañch. But that part of the legislation was later struck down by the constitutional court, along with provisions for immersive education in France’s minority languages.
