They seem to watch over the Breton city. At a good height, on a wall facing the port of Rosmeur, around twenty protesting workers are represented, traditional headdresses and raised fists, celebrating their victory against the bosses of the canneries. Not far away, one of these former workers, Joséphine Pencalet, who would become a municipal councilor, the first elected woman in France, has a red flag drawn in her hand. Douarnenez, a small town in Finistère, is preparing to celebrate the centenary of the workers’ strike Penn Sardinethese sardine boats from the town who went on strike for six weeks in November 1924.
Scattered across the town, a dozen of these collages remind visitors of the city’s rebellious and militant culture. It still swarms through the Breton port, and we can almost hear it whirring in the sea winds that blow through the streets. This rebellious fiber, so vibrant in recent years, continues to attract on the coasts of the city of twenty- and thirty-year-olds from all corners of France, seduced by the local associative fabric.
In this town of fourteen thousand inhabitants, the “neo” – the nickname given to these newcomers – even speak of a « Marseille-Montreuil-Brussels-Douarnenez connection »accelerated since Covid. Often, these young urbanites, mostly from artistic and cultural backgrounds, go there through word of mouth. Some leave, then come back to settle down for good, feeling that there is “something to do there”.
A good hundred associations
At the Angle rouge, a bookstore installed since 2020 in the former premises of a nursery school in the center, the founders of the place are all part of these trajectories. Between two advices, the bookseller Brice Fontan, 38 years old, looks back on his former Parisian life where, evolving in the very competitive environment of the theater, he began to [s]“damage”. It was a romantic encounter that brought him here, in 2017. “I was captivated by the dynamism of the city. There were already a good hundred associations,” he remembers.
Her partner Leïla Couroussé-Licois, 36, crossed paths with Douarnenez around the same time, when, going hiking on the Breton GR34 with friends, she decided to make a detour there to discover the Festival du movie theater. An event held every summer, this festival contributes, with the cinema center, active all year round, to the lasting installation of many artists in the field. It didn’t take more than one visit for her and two of her friends to fall in love with the place.
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