"Bevet Breiz/"

At Paris' stately Palais de Justice, eleven men from the ancient province of Brittany went on trial this month before the rarely convened National Security Court. The charges: terrorism and seeking to overthrow the authority of the state. Before the proceedings began, the conservative daily Le Figaro predicted that the defendants--members of an underground organization seeking autonomy for Brittany--would use the trial as a "magnificent platform" for their cause. It was, as matters turned out, a most accurate guess.

On the very first day of the trial, one of the accused, Dr. Yves Gourves, 25, declared through his lawyer that he would need an interpreter because he spoke only Breton, the native Celtic tongue of Brittany. Up rose District Attorney Pierre Aguiton with an objection. "The defendant speaks and understands French perfectly," he protested. "Otherwise, how could he have finished his medical studies? Besides, he answered pretrial questioning in French." Retorted Gourves' lawyer, Henri Leclerc: "He may have forgotten his French in jail." The chief judge, Franc,ois Romerio, asked Gourves if he had anything to say. "Ne gomzin nemet e brezhoneg [I will speak only in Breton]," replied the doctor. "I withdraw your right to speak," said Romerio.

The bearded doctor continued talking in his Celtic tongue. "Guards!" cried the judge. "Expel the defendant from the courtroom." As the gendarmes moved in, five of Gourves' fellow defendants jumped to his aid, thereby setting off a five-minute melee. Order was finally restored after six gendarmes produced submachine guns.

For the rest of the week-long trial, polemics replaced punches, with the accused in effect becoming the accusers. All but one of the defendants admitted having dynamited 18 public and private buildings in Brittany over a twelvemonth period that ended last April. With the charges virtually undisputed, the prosecution did not bother to call a single witness. But the defendants used their days in court to speak out eloquently and emotionally on the economic exploitation and political neglect of their region.

Defense lawyers argued that the accused were not anarchists bent on gaining Brittany's total independence from France but responsible autonomists who had been forced to resort to violence to dramatize their cause. Their principal aims: the right of Bretons to speak their own tongue and a Breton legislative assembly with some control over the use of taxes raised in Brittany. Among the supporting witnesses called by the defenders was a World War II French underground hero, General Jacques Paris de Bollardiere, who declared: "The actions these Bretons are accused of I myself committed during the Resistance."

The Bretons also summoned to their defense representatives of France's other major ethnic groups--Basques, Catalans, Languedocians and Corsicans. The testimony of a young Catalan lawyer, Michel Mayol, reflected the increasing restlessness of Europe's regional minorities. "These men acted in legitimate self-defense against cultural alienation, economic exploitation and colonialism," he said. "The oppressive conditions provoke resistance. The defendants are not desperadoes, as they have been depicted, but the hope of Brittany." In the end, the judges seemed to agree that the accused were at least not desperadoes. After two hours' deliberation, they acquitted three and let the other eight go free with suspended prison sentences of two to five years.

Le Figaro called it a "verdict of appeasement," but Bretons were naturally delighted. As the defendants left the Palais de Justice, they were greeted by supporters waving Breton flags and chanting "Bevet Breiz! .Bevet Breiz [Long live Brittany]!" Earlier in the day, an acrobatic sympathizer had placed the flag of Brittany atop the 250-foot spire of Notre Dame cathedral. Police had to send a physical education instructor up the spire to haul it down.

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