It is nicknamed “the island of children” because there were so many kids there in the interwar period with nearly 200 toddlers having fun on this rock of 1,300 inhabitants. Like all the Breton islands, Sein then experienced the exodus of its youth towards the continent. Today, there are barely 300 inhabitants left on this small piece of land two kilometers long and 500 meters wide located off the coast of Pointe du Raz (Finistère).
The island of Sein, with its narrow and winding streets, could also claim the title of “island of presidents”. Under the Fifth Republic, the 56-hectare granite islet has in fact seen four presidents pass by and this Tuesday it will welcome a fifth with the arrival of Emmanuel Macron, who was forced to cancel his visit in 2022. It is General de Gaulle who, after a first visit in 1946, opened this presidential ball by going to the Breton island in 1960. Then mayor of Paris, Jacques Chirac followed suit in 1980, followed by François Mitterrand in 1985 .
Twenty years later, François Hollande finally perpetuated this tradition in 2014 by giving a speech in the pouring rain, which sparked a lot of mockery. A good player, the socialist then quipped by indicating that even a president could not “suppress the rain”.
128 men from the island responded to the call of June 18
Despite these vagaries of the Breton weather, why on earth do all the presidents come to taste the air of Sein? To find out, you have to go back 84 years. So June 18, 1940. In exile in London, General de Gaulle then launched on the BBC an appeal to all French people to continue the fight: the appeal of June 18, the 84th anniversary of which we are celebrating this Tuesday.
The following days, 128 men from the island of Sein left their rock, leaving behind their families and their fishing nets, to cross the Channel and reach free France. “They were almost all the able-bodied men on the island,” says Bernez Rouz, journalist and historian who retraced this epic last year in the book Breast, an island of resistance published by Editions des Montagnes Noires.
When reviewing his troops, de Gaulle, joined by a few hundred men, declared that the island of Sein was “therefore a quarter of France”. Until the German capitulation, these Sénans, aged 14 to 54, played a leading role in the resistance, many fighting within the Free French Naval Forces or among the marine riflemen. “Around thirty died in combat,” underlines Bernez Rouz.
The most decorated commune for the Second War
Back on their island, these resistant fishermen returned, in all modesty, to their daily work before de Gaulle came to pay tribute to them in 1946, presenting the Cross of Liberation to the Ile de Sein. “There will always be, now, in France people who will think of the island of Sein, before launching the general to the crowd. All of France will know that there was a good and courageous Breton island on the ocean whose magnificent example will become legendary and children will learn in their history books the heroic action of a good and courageous French island. »
At the Liberation, Sein will also receive the Croix de Guerre 1939-1945, the Resistance medal and will be designated as one of the five communes “companions of the Liberation”, making the little Breton rock the most decorated French commune for the title of the Second World War. A heritage that is still celebrated today on the island with a ceremony organized each year in small groups on June 24. Politicians from all sides also like to go there to salute this spirit of resistance and this act of bravery of these 128 Sénans, “Like Mont Valérien, it is a somewhat obligatory passage for a President of the Republic”, underlines Bernez Rouz.
The frosty reception for Marine Le Pen in 2020
But on the island, not everyone is welcome either. In 2020, Marine Le Pen received a very stormy reception when she wanted to pay tribute to General de Gaulle, the residents turning their backs on her upon her arrival at the port and insulting her copiously. ” It’s a shame ! Pure provocation,” an islander told him.
Four years later, the National Rally almost rocked the island, long considered, like all of Brittany, as a land hostile to the extreme right. During the European elections, Jordan Bardella’s list actually came second on the stone, only beaten by four small votes by that of Raphaël Glucksmann.