Breton Revolutionary Army

ARB logo

The Breton Revolutionary Army (in French, Armee Revolutionnaire Bretonne, ARB), is an illegal armed organization that is part of a wider independence movement spawned in the region of Brittany, France. This area was united with France in 1524. The region had its own unique culture, including the Celtic Breton language which is similar to Welsh. However, in 1789 the region was barred from having a self-ruling administration and the language was banned. In 1963 the Front de Liberation Breton (FLB, Breton Liberation Front), was formed to protest the suppression of Brittany by the French Government. A series of terrorist attacks started in 1974 and the Breton Revolutionary Army was formed to carry out these actions. Within this larger organization is the group Emgann, which has strong anti-capitalist and pro-independence goals. Targets of the ARB were strictly symbolic and it believed that over 200 attacks, none of which included casualties, can be related to the organization. Many viewed their goal to rid themselves of the "Occupying Jacobin power" as having "retained something of a Quixotic, folkloric nobility" (Time Europe.) However, in 2000 a bomb exploded in a McDonald's restaurant in Quevert, killing a waitress. The shift in targets can be related to the Breton Revolutionary Army’s new association with the Basque nationalists of ETA in 1999, as well as their declaration that the government in Paris would only respond to attacks that are more direct. The McDonald's incident also emphasized their new anti-American and globalization positions.

In September 1999, a joint commando force of ETA and ARB raided a factory in Plevin, stealing over eight tonnes of Titadyn dynamite.

The goals of the ARB as told to a Basque newspaper follow the idea that “France is not a dictatorship, but nor is there complete democracy in Brittany. When the French Constitution recognizes the existence of a Breton people, the integrity of our territory, the Breton language, the conditions for a real democratic debate will be reunited. An armed struggle seems to us the only efficient means to obtain these conditions." The French continue a policy of no tolerance for the violence; the most recent of trials against members tried for the McDonald's and other related bombings have come back guilty.