Just over a year ago, Eluned Morgan became the first Welsh Minister for International Relations. In 2019, her office developed a new international strategy for Wales, which was launched this week.
France features throughout the strategy (16 times exactly, including 4 mentions of Brittany) as an important partner for trade, tourism, education and culture. It is indeed Wales’ closest neighbour outside of the UK, after Ireland. It is also the second largest export country for Wales, after Germany.
It’s been heartening to see links between both countries strengthen recently, with the opening of a Welsh Government foreign office in Paris, and the launch of Le Club – a Franco-Welsh networking business forum aiming to stimulate partnership between organisations with both French and Welsh links. Le Club organised a series of events last year – including the first Wales Week in Paris.
But although it is high on the agenda, soft power is difficult to evaluate. Looking at how Wales has been portrayed in French news, over the last 12 months, sheds some light on how its reputation spreads across the Channel.
Sports
Unsurprisingly, the majority of French articles about Wales relate to sports. After Geraint Thomas’ Tour de France win in 2018, 2019 was marked by the Welsh Grand Slam at the Six Nations, and the rugby world cup in Japan.
There were too many articles to list here – but it’s worth pointing out this piece in Ouest France, analysing how Japanese spectators fell in love with Wales and its rugby team as a result of the WRU’s sustained marketing and communications efforts.
Highlights also included Emiliano Sala’s tragic death and the suit that followed between the clubs in Cardiff and Nantes, Gareth Bale’s provocative celebrations, and Rhys Webb’s transfer rumours.
Politics
French media have been closely following Brexit developments since 2016, but rarely focusing on Wales specifically. That was until the UK shifted Prime Minister and announced a general election.
In August, Le Figaro devoted an article to the Brecon and Radnor by-election, the new Prime Minster’s first electoral test, which he lost to the Lib Dems.
Then, in December, Ouest France took its reader to Wrexham, where voters abandoned Labour over Brexit. The paper correctly anticipated that the constituency’s local election would act as a barometer of the upcoming general election. It introduced the Welsh “remain” alliance, comprising plaid Cymru, the Lib Dems and the Greens – but not Labour, as regretted by Roger Awan-Scully.
Meanwhile, Le Monde met with Anna McMorrin, as she was fighting to keep her seat in Cardiff North, to understand how Labour campaigners tried to overcome the anti-Corbyn sentiment in the final week before the vote.
As French journalists seem to slowly develop an interest in Welsh politics, cries for Welsh independence have started to break through the Brexit noise. Courrier International published a French translation of a Guardian article about the Cofiwch Dryweryn wall, symbol of a growing Welsh nationalism, and over the summer, regional paper Le Peuple Breton reported on the Cardiff and Caernarfon demonstrations.
However, as La Croix pointed out, Wales remains less independentist than Scotland and Northern Ireland. The paper recalls that Wales voted to leave the EU at 52,5 % back in 2016, and explains that Plaid Cymru focuses more on promoting Welsh culture and language, than actual independence.
A programme much envied by Brittany, which despite having a strong regional identity, its own language and a population similar to that of Wales, does not enjoy the same level of devolution nor funding. As political scientist Romain Pasquier explained in Ouest France, the Breton legislative authority has a budget limited to 1.5bn euros, as compared to 19bn euros for the Senedd.
Industry
Car manufacturing has been making the headlines more than once in Les Echos last year. The paper reported that PSA could move all production from its Ellesmere Port factory if Brexit makes it unprofitable, and that Ford would close its factory in Bridgend – the same town where Ineos plans to build a Grenadier SUV. The opening of Aston Martin’s manufacturing plant in St Athan didn’t get as much coverage, although several specialised outlets like Turbo mentioned Wales in their review of the DBX car.
To combat industrial decline, Eluned Morgan put tech and creative industries at the heart of her new international strategy. Or as La Croix puts it in an in depth article on IQE: “Wales is more famous for factory closures than for high-tech prowess, yet, in the former coal heartland of Newport, a handful of semiconductor manufacturers dream of building a new Silicon Valley”.
Surf & Turf
Back in 2018, Carwyn Jones, then First Minister of Wales, came to Brittany to renew the Memorandum of Understanding between both regions, first agreed in 2004. At the time, he raised the possibility of the creation of a Euroregion between Wales and Brittany and identified cybersecurity and marine energy as existing areas of economic cooperation. The same areas of collaboration have been outlined in Eluned Morgan’s strategy, along with a reinforced focus on agri-food.
While this Euroregion is yet to be formalised, French media did show interest in the Welsh marine energy – more specifically in Marine Power Systems’ wave energy converter project and in the new collaboration agreement between Wales, Ireland and Cornwall on developing floating wind projects in the Celtic Sea.
Not all marine news were positive though: in Ouest France, Stewart Graves talked about the risks Brexit pose to his shipbuilding business, Mainstay Marine Solutions, while Euronews covered the situation in the sea-threatened village of Fairbourne.
On land, several exchanges between Brittany and Welsh farmers reportedly took place. Over the summer, a Welsh beekeeper from Crymch travelled to Pleyben to meet with French counterparts, as part of a research project commissioned by the Welsh Government. In November, Reussir reported that ten sheep farmers from Brittany had spent a week in Wales to learn about grass feeding, genetic selection, and the marketing of lambs, in a study trip organised by Agriculture paysanne.
Tourism & Culture
To attract tourists, as well as farmers and businesses, to Wales, Visit Britain published a travel feature in Le Monde. Several remarkable Welsh places were also highlighted in French media, such as the Brecon Beacons (listed in a Ouest France article recommending four splendid natural parks as holiday destinations), the village of Harlech (which won the record title for the world’s steepest street) and the newly opened ICC center.
In addition, the 2019 edition of the Lorient Interceltic Festival saw Wales once again represented by a strong delegation of performers with 10 music acts, an exhibition of photography... and a statue of Dewi Sant. As Breizh Info; Le Télégramme; and Ouest France reported, the patron saint of Wales was the star of the second edition of « La Traversée des Géants » (The Giants' Crossing). Organised by the Valley of the Saints association, the project involves sculpting a Celtic saint in a different Celtic country each year, and getting the statue across the sea on a boat all the way down to Brittany.
Brittany also hosted a conference comparing its history to that of Wales, and a "café-histoire" devoted to the history of the Welsh language. Meanwhile, Océanide, a Breton association which promotes maritime heritage, used Cardiff’s Pierhead to exhibit photos of Breton coasters that traded with Wales in the 1930s, taken by Welshman Jack K Neale.