The Regionalisms of Regional Employers: Diversity in Economic Mobilization in Brittany

Abstract

Brittany is a robust exception to the traditional weakness of regional economic associations in France; from the 1990s, regional enterprises tend to organize on the regional scale, in order to pursue productive aims or even exert influence over public institutions. However, these collective actions depend on very different political and economic logics in High and Low Brittany. This configuration thus carries on to examine the theories on the recombining of the European territories (new-regionalism, new-localism), to understand how these logics contribute to a fragmentation of the regional governance.

Keywords:

• Regionalism
• governance
• business associations
• regional employers
• Brittany
• France

Acknowledgement

Comments from those who have read this article have been extremely valuable: the author extends his thanks to them.

Notes

1. Begun in 1998 in the context of a doctorate in political science at Rennes University (completed in 2005), this survey focuses on regionalist mobilizations in Brittany between 1950 and 2000. Through observing, first, political and institutional mobilizations, secondly, economic and associative mobilizations and, finally, nationalist and cultural logics, it seeks to examine the ways they link together and interact alongside the territorial integration that they generate at the regional level. Starting with a review of the academic literature and the writings of Breton actors, the research eventually comprised about sixty interviews.

2. In 1995, the association involved major employers in the following sectors: the automotive industry (Citroën: the largest, with over 8500 employees; and ECIA, in fourth place), the plastics industry (SPI, third largest employer) and plastics processing (MPAP, in first place; Allibert, fifth; and Plastic Omnium, sixth), furniture (Siebret, second largest employer in the sector), household articles (where Siebret is the fourth largest), mechanical equipment (Legris, in sixth place), etc. 1998 figures (INSEE, 2000).

3. In 2000, the 80 enterprises in the industrial working group were all in the food processing industry, and included the main food distributors; in the food processing section, SMEs such as Caugant and Hénaff, co-exist with big businesses, such as Doux.

4. In terms of the ‘nature’ of the enterprise (private/co-operative), size, sector, positioning on the market (quality-orientated or volume-orientated; international, national or regional) or in the chain (production/distribution), or locality (Upper or Lower Brittany), etc. For example, in terms of sectors, the prime movers in Locarn since its inception have represented the food processing industry (Hénaff, Glon, Caugant), communications (Le Lay), distribution (Le Roch, Bordais), transport (Capitaine), services (Pelle), energy (Caër), finance (Le Douarin), and the automotive industry (Génovèse).

5. Through very supple neo-corporatist mechanisms; through their own aims and even their very existence; through a logic of influence with regard to the region. Of course, the regions' institutional weakness (in France as a whole) and pluralist strategies (in Brittany) may reduce the regional impact of this political form of regulation.