At Paris' stately Palais de Justice, eleven men from the ancient province of Brittany went on trial this month before the rarely convened National Security Court. The charges: terrorism and seeking to overthrow the authority of the state. Before the proceedings began, the conservative daily Le Figaro predicted that the defendantsmembers of an underground organization seeking autonomy for Brittanywould use the trial as a "magnificent platform" for their cause. It was, as matters turned out, a most accurate guess.
On the very first day of the trial, one of the accused, Dr. Yves...