They seem to be watching the Breton city. High up, on a wall overlooking the port of Rosmeur, around twenty protesting workers are represented, with traditional headdresses and raised fists, celebrating their victory against the cannery bosses. Not far away, one of these former workers, Joséphine Pencalet, who will become a municipal councilor, the first woman elected in France, has a red flag drawn in her hand. Douarnenez, a small town in Finistère, prepares to celebrate the centenary of the workers’ strike Penn Sardinthese local sardine boats that went on strike for six weeks in November 1924.
Scattered around the city, a dozen of these collages remind visitors of the city’s rebellious and militant culture. It still swarms around the Breton port and we can almost hear it humming among the sea winds that blow through the streets. This rebellious fiber, so vibrant in recent years, continues to attract on the shores of the city of young people of twenty and thirty years old who came from all corners of France, seduced by the local associative fabric.
In this town of fourteen thousand inhabitants, the “neo” – as these newcomers are known – even speak of a “ Marseille-Montreuil-Brussels-Douarnenez connection »accelerated since Covid. Often, these young urbanites, mostly from artistic and cultural backgrounds, arrive there by word of mouth. Some leave and then return to settle permanently, feeling that there is “something to do there”.
A good hundred associations
At Angle Rouge, a bookstore installed since 2020 in the former premises of a downtown daycare center, the founders of the place are part of these trajectories. Between two tips, the bookseller Brice Fontan, 38, remembers his old 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 more than one hundred associations.” he remembers.
His partner Leïla Couroussé-Licois, 36, crossed paths with Douarnenez around the same time, when, hiking along the Breton GR 34 with friends, he decided to take a detour to discover the Film Festival. This festival, held every summer, contributes, with cinema, active throughout the year, to the lasting installation of numerous artists in the sector. 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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