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And nobody minds too much when we dress in Breton tops
Bretons are actually an ethnic group. Or at least, many people in France claim Breton ethnicity. Last year, after over a decade of legal wranglings, a Breton won 'European Citizens of Breton Nationlity' status for himself and his family, and has now started a legal battle against the French authorities to claim that status.
The Breton people have been pretty consistently marginalised and belittled. The Vichy government took away their historic capital (Nantes). From 1880 to the 1950s the French government banned Breton language in the school system. Thanks to a minority of Bretons who teamed up with the Nazis in WWII (when Brittany was particularly heavily occupied, just look up what happened to Saint-Pol-Roux) Breton nationalists and action for the Breton language and culture as a whole became labeled as "pro-Nazi" when the war ended. That was pretty ironic as the resistance in Brittany was on the whole very strong. The French generally look down their noses a bit at Bretons. I'm not sure how directly it compares but it seems to be quite similar to our stereotypical view of people in the west country: cow-worrying, cider-making wurzel types.
Dressing up as a Breton top, beret-wearing onion-bearing stereotype is essentially double cultural appropriation because the Breton top is a symbol of Brittany, not France.
What's my point? Not sure, I guess that nearly anything can be seen as cultural appropriation. I will keep wearing my nice Armor-Lux top though, but will bear in mind that is is possibly cultural appropriation when I do :)
Fox-
Thanks for that, a nice synopsis. I think Bretons look down their noses at the 'French' as much as the other way around. And funny you should draw comparisons with the West Country because the peoples from the West Country derive from the same Celtic diaspora as the Bretons - there is an affinity between the two.
[Note, hailing from the West Country myself, I have never taken any offence at references to cow-worrying, cider-making wurzel types made in my presence. I do, however, feel a strong affection for Bernard Hinault, himself a Breton.]
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The Breton people have been pretty consistently marginalised and belittled. The Vichy government took away their historic capital (Nantes). From 1880 to the 1950s the French government banned Breton language in the school system.
See also Wales, Machynlleth, the Welsh Not.
The_Kindness_of_Trees
Emyr
I don't think that gets you anywhere. Nobody's going to object to caricaturing the culturally diverse people of the British isles as a load of bowler hat wearing, suitcase and umbrella carrying south-eastern English middle managers, are they? And nobody minds too much when we dress in Breton tops, berets and toss a string of onions around our necks. There must be more to this than the mere donning of cliched threads.
Maybe genocide...