TIME EUROPE
May 1, 2000 VOL. 155 NO. 17
From Quaint to Bloodthirsty
Brittany's independence movement has forfeited its claim to innocence
By BRUCE CRUMLEY Paris
For some in france, the 34-year struggle by militants in Brittany to gain independence from the "occupying Jacobin power" of the central French state had retained something of a Quixotic, folkloric nobility. It had an innocence that derived from the movement's success in not harming innocents despite scores of symbolic bombings. But that clean record — and quaint reputation — was stained in blood last week when a suspected Breton Revolutionary Army bomb killed a 28-year-old employee of a McDonald's restaurant.
The bombing of McDonald's in the Breton town of Quèvert on Wednesday coincided with the discovery of an unexploded bomb at a post office in the regional capital of Rennes. Tests found that both had been constructed from explosives that were part of an eight-ton cargo of dynamite stolen in the area last September by Breton and Basque nationalists, and only partially recovered by police. Last week's assault followed nearly 20 attacks over the past 18 months by resurgent Breton militants, who have blasted standard targets like administrative offices, police precincts and utility installations, as well as more politically personalized sites in the home towns of Prime Minister Lionel Jospin and Interior Minister Jean-Pierre Chevènement.
In addition to the unprecedented fatality, officials say the attack on the McDonald's restaurant — which had been shot at last month — is significant in marking the separatists' adoption of anti-American and antiglobalization sentiment. "The traditional struggle against 'the colonial French state' is now expanding to war on globalization, expatriate corporations, agrobusiness — anything running counter to their regional, ecological, traditionalist, back-to-the-earth ideology," says a French antiterrorist official. The extreme leftist politics of the original Breton nationalists may now be fusing with the anti-Americanism and the penchant for violence of younger militants. If so, last week's attack could presage more bloody assaults on the representatives of globalism by defiant warriors of a now not-so-quaint neo-tribalism.
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May 1, 2000
COVER
Zimbabwe in Flames
Robert Mugabe has kept his grip on power by manipulation and intimidation. Now, it's all spinning out of control
Voice of Protest
Despite a ban on radio play of Thomas Mapfumo's latest song hits, detailing the grim state that Zimbabwe is in, his album is a best-seller
Viewpoint
The hired thugs who do Mugabe's bidding are threatening to hold peace a hostage to autocratic power
EUROPE
A New Arms Race?
Once consigned to the cold war trash heap, a U.S. national missile defense system — if revived and deployed — could shatter key accords with Moscow and renew the arms race
The End for D'Alema
Italy's first ex-communist Prime Minister is crushed by center-right election gains
Innocent No More
After symbolic bombings in France, Breton nationalists claim a life at a McDonald's outlet
Viewpoint
Going for the throat is Vladimir Putin's style
BUSINESS
Nordic Pace-setter
Finland's Merita-Nordbanken leads the way in Internet and mobile phone banking
A TV Triumph
Broadcasters and producers join the Web and go global
FASHION
The Suit is Dead; Long Live the Suit
Bankers dressing like Internet executives create the biggest threat to the suit in 100 years. Can it survive?
DEPARTMENTS
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World Watch
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