French letter: Following the arc of diversity from Belfast to Callac

Growing up in Belfast in the 1950s and ’60s, I was aware of only two national identities: British and Irish. The British were Protestant and the Irish were Catholic. They looked and sounded exactly the same, but somehow “you could tell”. 

Years later, when I was posted to Brussels by the Irish Times, I encountered a third group – Europeans, who to me, until I got to know them better, were differentiated only by language. All of my colleagues at the European Commission were white, middle class and of Christian heritage. The same was true of pretty well all the residents of the Quartier Européen where my apartment was situated. The only black faces we saw, apart from those who lived in the mean streets round the railway stations, were visiting dignatories from the African, Caribbean and Pacific group of nations lobbying for a better deal from the then EEC. 

It wasn’t until I got to London in 1979, that what we must now call “diversity” bludgeoned its way into my consciousness. Suddenly, half my neighbours were Jamaicans and the corner shop was run by Asians. At least a quarter of my fellow commuters making their way, cheek-by-jowl, in and out of central London each day were from various ethnic minorities, as were most of the staff working the Underground and the main railway terminals. 

What didn’t strike me then, but seems blindingly obvious to me today, is that this onrush of diversity ended abruptly the moment I set foot in the newsroom, whether at the Financial Times, the Telegraph or the Sunday Times. There wasn’t a single black face among the rows of gentleman journalists at the FT, almost all of whom, in addition to being white, were the products of a public school and Oxbridge education. At the Telegraph, it was the same. I remember one exception, a rather beautiful, and glamorous, black woman from, I think, Ghana, called Penny, who was generally referred to as Penny Black. By the time 1990 came round, I was working at the Sunday Times, where, with the exception of two young Asian reporters, everyone was almost as pasty-faced as me. 

It is very different today, of course. Today, it is in effect mandatory to have a full compliment of Black and Asian journalists on staff. At the BBC, Asians are to be found at every level of the corporation, as they are in business and the City. Black enterpreneurs, once seen as a contradiction in terms, now feature prominently in the Sunday Times Rich List. In Parliament, there are scores of “minority” MPs on both sides of the House, and the current prime minister is, of course, of Indian origin. 

So much has changed in the last 20 years that it is bewildering for those of us in our seventies, never mind 83-year-old Lady Susan Hussey. The world has changed, and the pace of that change is continuing to quicken.  

Which brings me, with a dull thud, to my current reality in central Brittany. I wrote a couple of week ago about an experiment in the market town of Callac that, if successful, will introduce racial and religious diversity to a community that, in demographic terms, has changed little since the region was incorporated into France in 1532. 

The idea is simple. Immigrants from Africa and Asia who have right of residence in France will be invited to live in subsidised accomodation in Callac, where they will receive instruction in skills that are in short supply thoughout the commune, including agriculture. The plan – the hope – is that once trained and immersed in the community, the newly tooled-up immigrants and their families will bring new vigour to a part of the country that has been economically depressed and isolated for far too long. 

As I have noted, the proposal is not universally popular. Many Callacois resent the idea of foreigners who are neither white nor even nominally Christian intruding into their closed society. To many Bretons, lots of whom have never even made it as far as Rennes, it is bad enough that they are beholden to Paris for their economic salvation, but they are damned if they are going to share their victimhood with incomers from different cultures who, before you know it, will be taking their jobs or their place in the dole queue. 

It is easy to criticise such attitudes. But you will find them in every rural community, where tradition and complacency frequently go hand in hand. The truth is that there are two Frances. The first, led by Paris, is urban, sophisticated and multicultural. The second is stuck in the past, resentful of change. Local papers, like Le Poher, Le Telégramme and Le Trégor, do their best to present a broader picture of the nation and the world. But it is to the pages filled with photographs of every kind of local gathering that readers turn first, followed closely by a scrutiny of the death notices. 

In Callac, as in hundreds of other small towns and villages, everyone knows everybody else. There aren’t that many surnames. Le Gall, Le Goff, Le Guen, Morvan, Rolland, Loussouarn, Lunay and Le Breton are mong the most common round our way – though also Simon, Robert and Thomas. Children attend the local maternelle before going on to the Collège Gwer Halou, from which, if they don’t make it to university or fail to find jobs in the vicinity, they migrate to St Brieuc (with its hint of diversity) or further afield, to Rennes, Paris or Nantes. 

In retirement, many of those who left in their late teens return to live out their lives, drinking kir in the mornings and playing boules in the afternoons. I assume they mostly inherit their parents’ homes, which under French law cannot be sold off or willed away without the approval of the statutory beneficiaries. The town’s ever-expanding retirement home, known as La Verte Vallée, charges a minimum of €1,825 (£1,565) a month for board and lodgings, with medical care thrown in. State subsidies bring the net price down for most residents. Even so, €22,000 a year is a lot to ask. 

I doubt that Callac in 2032 will be very different from Callac in 2022. The town had its heyday in the nineteenth century, when it was a recognised centre of the cattle trade, with bars and hotels to meet the needs of farmers and agents from across Brittany. But in the years ahead, the photographs in the local press of sports clubs, associations des amis and community lunches for the elderly may begin to display a few faces that would surprise La Duchesse Anne, the celebrated fifteenth century matriarch of Brittany. After fifty years in the doldrums, Callac could at last be on the cusp of change.