Yann Goulet
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Yann Goulet, or Yann Renard-Goulet(August 20, 1914 in Saint-Nazaire -1999 in Bray, near Dublin, Ireland) was a Breton nationalist and Irish sculptor.
Before World War II, Goulet was a member of the Parti national breton, and a former member of SFIO. His artistic career began at the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux Arts, where he studied art and architecture, and learned sculpture with Rodin's assistant, Despiau. His works in France include: Bas-reliefs, Exposition International de Paris (1938), and the monument to the youth of the French empire, Lille (1939). He was part of the Breton artistic movement Seiz Breur. He was detained, then released after the destruction the monument de la fédération britto-angevine at Pontivy on December 18, 1938 by Gwenn ha Du, of which he was suspected of orchestrating.
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[edit] World War II
[edit] Armée française
In 1939, he was not allowed to take courses reserved for engineering cadet officers. He was sent to Strasbourg to study the art of sabotage. He participated in the beginning of World War II and was captured by the Germans on June 11, 1940 while exploding a bridge on the Aisne with friends from a French corps.
[edit] Bagadou Stourm
During the war, he joined the assault section of Bagadou Stourm. He also collaborated with the nationalist newspaper L'Heure bretonne. In 1941 in Paris, he became head of Bagadou Stourm and the "Youth Organizations" of the Parti National Breton. The promotion of Bagadou Stourm officers was named "Patrick Pearse" as a way of celebrating the 25th anniversary of the rising in Quénécan forest. His aim was to bring back an Irish influence (that of the IRA) different to that of Lu Brezhon, with which relations tightened after 1941.
[edit] The sculptor
Goulet, his wife, and his children went to Ireland in 1947 as refugees. He acquired Irish citizenship in 1952 and became an art professor. Today, many of his works adorn the public buildings of Dublin, including mémorial de Custom House in Dublin, Kerry Committee in Ballyseedy, and hommage aux combattants de la liberté de l'East Makyo in Kilkellys).
[edit] Breton nationalism
Towards the end for the 1960s, he claimed the reins of the Front de libération de la Bretagne and laid claim to all their attacks. On one morning in 1968, the head of police in Brey congratulated him on his previous day's attack on the CRS barracks in Saint-Brieuc. All his minions voluntarily came in to fight in Brittany by his side. His friends called him tonton Yann and the spectics called him général micro. In 1969, he became secretary general for the CBL (Comité National de la Bretagne Libre). In reality, he never exerted much influence on the renewal of Breton autonomy. Goulet has always stood by his "national revolution that passed us by in 1940"
