Cymru : Welsh government set the agenda on languages rights

Even before the first ever debate is held in the French Parliament this Wednesday about the languages of the French state, Plaid Cymru have announced that they are preparing to bid for an extension of the range of powers for the Welsh language in Wales, as part of the Welsh Assembly Government in Cardiff.

Currently Welsh language legislation in Wales does not cover the private sector, allowing companies to actively discriminate against Welsh speakers should they wish to do so. However, plans unveiled by Plaid Cymru last week by Welsh Language Minister Rhodri Glyn Thomas will give statutory rights to Welsh speakers in the work place for the first time. Last year, several companies and businesses in Wales asked their workforce not to speak Welsh while at work, including the travel agency Thomas Cook, the supermarket chain Tesco and its recruitment agency, Adecco and even a restaurant in North Wales, 'La Voile'.

Welsh Government Assembly Member Alun Ffred Jones, who has been actively campaigning for further rights for the Welsh language said:

"I want 2008 to be remembered as the year that Government Ministers recognised, for the first time, that Welsh speakers should not be treated as second class citizens in their own country and decided to do something about it."

Further rights for Welsh would push language legislation in Wales far in advance of Brittany and the other Celtic countries, outside the Gaeltacht areas of Éire/Ireland. In France it has taken the United Nations Year of International Languages, NGO's denouncing French language and cultural policy to the United Nations in Geneva for the second year running, UNESCO recording an 'endangered' verdict on the Breton language and many, many years of campaigning and lobbying to even get the French Parliament to discuss the issue of its state languages.

The development of the linguistic rights of the peoples in all the other Celtic countries are leaving the Bretons the odd one out while the Breton language continues to suffer and struggle on in the face of a continuing policy of French linguistic assimilation.

J B Moffatt Director of Information Celtic League

05/05/08