AIKB Radio Project: Information Sheet

Spotlight on Brittany - Integration
Maire of St Gelven
Noël
Dans notre studio aujourd'hui Michel André Maire de Saint Gelven
commune de 320 habitants dont 71 résidences secondaires,
Saint Gelven qui borde le lac de Guerlédan entre l'Abbaye de Bon
Repos et Caurel.
Je crois savoir Monsieur le Maire, que beaucoup de sujets
britanniques se sont implantés dans les communes au bord du
lac.
Marilyn Michel André who is Maire of Saint Gelven, a small commune
near the Lac de Guerlédan is going to talk to us about his English
residents. Saint Gelven has three hundred and twenty residents
of which twenty eight are English language speakers and twelve
residences secondaires. There are also a couple of Dutch people
and some Colombians from South America in the commune.
Noël
Quand sont arrivés les premiers anglophones et y a-t-il toujours
de nouveaux arrivants?
Marilyn The first English arrived about fifteen years ago but obviously
with the pound, the value of the pound going down quite a lot of
people have left.
Noël
Au niveau de l'intégration quels sont les principaux problèmes
que vous ayez eu à résoudre en tant que Maire?
Marilyn Well if French legislation is difficult for the French you can
imagine that, for some of our English friends, it's even more
difficult. Although lots of English people have decided to renovate
where they are living or to build it's the legislation concerning
building permits which have caused the most problems.
Noël
Professionnellement y a-t-il eu des exemples particuliers
d'intégration?
Marilyn I'm going to speak about a young man who came with his
parents about fifteen years ago and who was a builder, he is a
builder, and he started his own business and he was working
mostly for British people who were renovating their houses.
However, when the municipality wanted to have some building
done we asked him if he would tender and his tender was
accepted so he worked for the Commune. Then there was
obviously less work coming from the British community and his
business closed however he has been recruited by a very large
building firm locally, French building firm, so I consider that this
is an integration which has succeeded.
© Spotlight on Brittany, AIKB 2011
Noël
La scolarité des enfants anglophones posent-elles des questions
spécifiques?
Marilyn I think that the Educational Minister has done something very
intelligent because he has had bilingual French-English teachers
sent to this area to help with the problems we do have.
Noël
Y a-t-il des associations anglophones sur votre commune?
Marilyn There is an English association, it's the Short Mat Bowling.
Marilyn Every Tuesday about thirty of their members come between ten
in the morning and six o'clock in the evening to play. They recruit
from all over the area and they have tried to get some French
people to come and play, unfortunately the French are a bit
timid.
Noël
Donc les Français n'ont pas joué le jeu!!!!
Marilyn In spite of this the Breton bowling which happens next door, so
there two types of bowls in my commune.
Noël
Merci Michel d'avoir pris le temps de nous répondre et bravo pour
toutes les initiatives sur votre commune.
Maire
Merci, merci à vous.
© Spotlight on Brittany, AIKB 2011