The Rance-Emeraude Country, extending from the Bay of Mont-Saint-Michel to the Fréhel headland and south as far as the former Breton Marches, notably including the various towns and fortresses of Dinan, Montmuran, Dol-de-Bretagne, Combourg and Fougères, comprises nowadays of what are termed administratively as the Districts of Dinan and Saint-Malo (“les Pays de Dinan et de Saint-Malo”). This region is well identified and adopted by the Business Club of the Rance Country (“Club des Entreprises du Pays de Rance” / CEPR). The project of a Regional Natural Park is one of its founding and mobilising elements. The Saint-Père Fort could be the setting to showcase and promote it. This region is built upon an historic socio-economic model created at the beginning of our era, characterized by an active, close and natural solidarity among the many men and women who created, developed it and increased its status by sharing a taste for conquering new horizons, for risk and enterprise, but also a necessity, that of feeding oneself, of feeding one’s family, of helping each other to rise out of poverty or of the loneliness brought on by the absence of ‘the other one’, gone far away.
This Country counts among its own a large number of illustrious and less illustrious characters who contributed to a local development along the lines of a sustainable, perennial ‘eco-system’, and this, right up until the last world war. They are many also who participated in the advancement of universal knowledge, in the discovery of continents, in the development of the Sciences, Arts and Letters, of good eating and of good living. Yet others were at the origins of the foundation of social or support charities which are still in existence.
Moreover, this has always been a land of welcome. Irish, English, people from Northern European countries, Canadians, for example, have taken part in its development, which is why we wished to have an English translation, and especially Russians, of whom we recall the presence of four generations of the Romanov family, of a colony of White Russians and, even today, of Boris Akounine, the world-famous novelist, essayist and historian, author of numerous historic crime novels. This is why we wished to translate our website into Russian, by way of paying tribute and as an invitation to develop our ancestral cultural ties and heritage.
What’s more, this Country possesses an architectural, maritime and natural heritage unique in France, high in density and evenly spread over the whole area ‘between land and sea’. All this is unfortunately hardly visible for the many visitors who are welcomed each year or for the ‘outsiders’ who come here to live.
| Between Land and Sea’ is also symbolic of the fertile interaction of these two natural elements, a two-way mobilization of people and goods, the land supplying the ‘sea’ companies, whose wealth, made and amassed at the trading centres created or from elsewhere in the world, came in turn to be invested inland to develop the life of the region.
Between Land and Sea’ is in effect its signature, magnificently illustrated by the television series produced by Hervé Baslé and his set designer Claude Lenoir. Both still live here, in the heart of these parts where “you’re born peasant or sailor, according to your lot”. |
Its a question of values and of a potential which is out there but under-utilized nowadays. This ‘ecosystem’ which functioned for several centuries has nurtured a DNA proper to this region’s inhabitants, all ‘people of spirit’. This is characterized by the qualities of entrepreneurship, courage, tenacity, modesty and solidarity, all at the same time.
So we must join forces, organize ourselves and put our efforts into ‘revealing’ it, promoting it, by offering each of its actors, manifold in the Rance-Emeraude Country, the chance to enrol in a ‘global scenography’, sourced by their own knowledge, history and heritage to construct their common future.
We have to build an ‘extra sense and soul’, to showcase it, to reinforce the recognized historic and natural attractiveness of this area, writing it into a global vision and the future possibilities of sustained economic development.
We have to delve into our roots to find ourselves and our dreams, without which there is no creative imagination.
Some say that you have to ‘deserve’ this territory. No, it should incite everyone to share these qualities of courage, the conquering spirit, solidarity in entrepreneurship, just as it has shown in the past.
These values should feed our willingness to build a common future along with the dual sentiments of legitimate pride and cheerful hospitality.
This website invites you to discover this and to join us in living it and making it live.
If your computer’s sound is switched on, your visit will be accompanied by the music of the sea, wind and Celtic harp. This music can be switched off by clicking the loudspeaker tab at the top right of the page under the language flags.