The religious factor of ethnopolitical regionalism in France: the Breton case

Regional identity in France is reproduced within the framework of a unitary state and the normative priority of the French language in the public sphere. Based on the case of Brittany, the article examines the Catholic Church as one of the most stable institutions of regional social infrastructure and analyzes how church networks participate in maintaining regional belonging in the context of the Republic's assimilationist domestic policy. The subject of the study is the institutional forms of participation of the Catholic Church in the reproduction of regional identity in Brittany within the secular and unitary context of the French Republic. The analysis of the Breton case addresses the normative-legal frameworks of secularity and linguistic unification, the evolution of Catholic social infrastructure, and the differences between levels of church hierarchy. The goal of the article is to identify the channels through which Catholic institutions preserve the public significance of regional forms of identification. Methodologically, the work relies on an institutional approach and includes three interconnected blocks: 1) normative-legal frameworks of secularity and linguistic unification; 2) the evolution of Catholic social infrastructure (contractual education, associative structures) and its integration into republican institutions; 3) the articulation of regional belonging through Catholic institutions. The scientific novelty of the research lies in the fact that the religious factor of Breton ethnopolitical regionalism is considered not as a residual cultural tradition but as a set of institutional mechanisms for the reproduction of regional identity in the conditions of a secular and unitary French Republic. It is shown that key roles in the contemporary activities of the Catholic clergy in Brittany are played by infrastructural and cultural-memorial channels. A structural difference in the levels of the clergy has been established: bishops more often operate through publicly significant and symbolic formats (patronage of religious heritage, support for the Breton language), whereas the parish level is more oriented towards compatibility with everyday linguistic and organizational requirements, including those related to the educational sphere. The obtained results allow for marking the mechanisms of reproduction of regional identity through church institutions in the context of republican assimilation and state secular policy. It is also shown that the resilience of forms of ethnopolitical regionalism is ensured by the adaptation of Catholic practices and organizations to the unitary regime of the French Republic.