Breton

According to the latest survey commissioned by the Brittany Region, carried out in 2024, Breton has about 107,000 speakers¹.

The Office public de la langue bretonne still displays the estimate based on the 2018 survey: 225,000 active and 125,000 passive speakers aged over 2³. According to that 2018 survey, 78% of speakers were over 60⁴.

UNESCO classifies Breton as "severely endangered"^1,4.

The Constitution states that "the language of the Republic is French" (Art. 2) and that "regional languages belong to the heritage of France" (Art. 75-1)⁸. France signed the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages on 7 May 1999, but the Constitutional Council ruled that it contained clauses contrary to the Constitution¹¹. Law no. 2021-641 of 21 May 2021 includes regional languages in the linguistic heritage protected by the Heritage Code⁹; the Constitutional Council struck down two of its articles, on immersion teaching and on diacritical signs in civil registers¹⁰.

Breton has no specific legal status; the OPLB describes it as the only Celtic language in that situation⁴. The State and the Brittany Region are bound by a "specific agreement for the transmission of the languages of Brittany and the development of their everyday use" for 2022–2027¹, whose main target is 30,000 bilingual pupils². The Region adopted a language policy plan in 2004, updated in 2012 and again in 2024; the Finistère department adopted a language scheme in 2016, renewed in 2023⁴.

The 2021 law allows public services to display translations into the regional language on public buildings, roads, transport infrastructure and their main communication materials⁹. However, the Constitutional Council held that a provision granting individuals a right to use a language other than French in their dealings with the administration was contrary to Article 2 of the Constitution¹⁰.

In Finistère, Morbihan and western Côtes-d'Armor, road direction signs are systematically bilingual; municipalities have also made town signs, street name plates, websites and other materials bilingual⁴. The Region's language action covers in particular TER regional trains, tourism and public buildings⁴.

At the start of the 2025 school year, 19,978 pupils were enrolled in bilingual streams (11,152 in public schools, 5,126 in Catholic schools, 3,700 at Diwan), in 702 schools and 215 municipalities³. This is the first fall in enrolment (302 fewer pupils) in 48 years of bilingual education; only the public stream is growing⁵. In addition, 4,044 pupils in monolingual streams took Breton classes at secondary level (2025) and 7,382 primary pupils had an introduction to the language (2024); 857 university students took Breton courses, 198 of them on the Breton language degree³.

According to the Ministry of Education, the number of pupils receiving some form of Breton teaching rose from 15,351 in 2020 to 26,230 in 2023, in nearly 1,100 classes².

Adults (2025): 17,379 learners on the Desketa platform, 3,130 in weekly classes and 357 on 3- or 6-month intensive courses³.

Television: Breton programmes have been broadcast on France 3 for more than 40 years; the local channels Tébéo, TébéSud and TVR also carry them, as does the web TV Brezhoweb⁶.

Radio: the local France Bleu stations (now ICI) have broadcast Breton programmes since 1982; community radio stations pool their programmes through Brudañ ha Skignañ⁶.

Press: the monthly Bremañ has appeared since the early 1980s and the weekly Ya! since the mid-2000s⁶. Under the 2024–2027 Plan for the re-appropriation of the languages of Brittany, the Region asked the OPLB to create the Kleweled.bzh portal, which gathers Breton-language audiovisual content⁶.

Publishing: 64 titles were published in Breton in 2022³.

"Ya d'ar brezhoneg" ("Yes to the Breton language") is an OPLB campaign promoting Breton in civil society and among municipalities; its charter brings together 829 private organisations, 251 municipalities and 24 inter-municipal bodies⁷.