Les Am

The craggy coast of Brittany juts into the Atlantic like the head of a hungry snapping turtle. Ragged with reefs and studded with wind-worn, prehistoric monuments, it is one of France's poorest but most picturesque regions. Even the names are striking: Brest and Quimper, Kernascleden and Morbihan--echoes of the Celtic invasion from Wales that settled the giant peninsula about 500 A.D. Life is hard and poor, and even the tourist trade is seasonal at best, for tourists come only when the wet, ragged winds from the Channel let up in the summer, and a pale sunlight ignites the Montagnes Noires. But tucked away in the bleakness of Brittany is a village that doesn't quite fit. Gourin (pop. 3,000) is fat, smart and happy.

The reason for Gourin's eminently un-Brittanic appearance is simple: "les Americains." That phrase defines the hundreds of Gourinois natives who have spent years in self-imposed American exile, then returned to Gourin with a tidy nest egg. Brittany has long been one of France's few labor-exporting regions, thanks largely to the peninsula's unyielding poverty. But of all the towns that send Bretons to the U.S., Gourin sends the most.

That fact is made evident by the tall, whitewashed houses of les Americains that set Gourin apart from the earth-hugging towns near by. The sound of carpentry rattles constantly through the town's tidy streets as 60 houses are currently under construction. Thanks to les Americains, Gourin's construction industry is Brittany's largest, and in the past generation, more than $1,000,000 has been spent on houses alone. Gourin's biggest and finest grocery belongs to an Americain, as do one of the town's three trucking businesses, a camera shop and a large clothing store. Attracted perhaps by Gourin's American-inspired affluence, a leather-goods manufacturer is building a factory there. "Gourin's answer to General Motors," grins Mayor Emile Le Gall, 56.

The Receptionist. Unlike the 19th century European immigrants who believed that the streets of America were literally paved with gold, Gourin's emigres know that the cobblestones are rough--but not so rough as at home. "You've got to work like a dog, do jobs that Negroes and North Africans do in France," says one returned Gourinois. "Still, practically everybody in Gourin has some friend or relative there." Each Christmas Gourin gets 10,000 greeting cards from New York--and many contain dollars.

Most of the Bretons in New York are restaurateurs: of Manhattan's 75 French restaurants, fully 21 are owned and staffed by Gourinois. They range from the East Side's L'Escargot (which serves a Breton specialty, homard `a l'Armoricain, for $5) through the West Side's Cafe des Sports, where for $1.80 a customer can demolish a head of lamb, drink two glasses of extraordinary vin ordinaire, and talk soccer with Proprietor Lucien Lozach, a former goalkeeper himself, who is keener on scores than on scullery.

Typical of the Gourin syndrome, Lozach was born there 36 years ago, left his father's bleak farm for lack of work, and became a "receptionist" in a Parisian meat factory. In 1952 he pulled up stakes and went west, became a bartender in his brother-in-law's New York restaurant, the Cafe Brittany, on Manhattan's West Side, and began learning the business from the bottom up. "Pigs' feet came first," he explains, "then on toward tete de veau." Today, lean and eager, and sporting a heavy gold ring, he is no man's receptionist. Indeed, Agence France-Presse's New York bureau phones him the French soccer results every Sunday afternoon.

The Tourists. Though Lozach does not intend to return to Gourin ("My kids were born here, and let's face it: it's an easier buck"), many Gourinois do. Samuel Daouphars, 54, was a chef in Manhattan's Au Pecheur restaurant for ten years before going home with his bundle. Now, like most of the town's 1,000 returned natives, he and his wife own a $20,000 blue and white stone house in Gourin, busy themselves raising flowers and vegetables. "They work hard as hell in America," complains Daouphars. "And all that air conditioning doesn't do any good. Funny thing, too--both my wife and I ate hardly anything--toast for breakfast, soup for lunch, a bit of meat for dinner. But, due to a lack of proper exercise, I had a huge belly hanging out in front of me."

Unfortunately for most returnees, there is little at home to reduce those huge, Americanized bellies. Last week some 1,000 Bretons converged on Paris to demand less money for Charles de Gaulle's force de frappe and more for industrializing Brittany. Significantly, only four Gourinois turned up in the crowd. This summer Lozach has arranged for Air France to carry 212 Manhattan operatives of the Stade Breton--Gourin's local sport and socializing club--back to the home village. "They'll spend about $2,000 each," Lozach explains. "That makes the place pretty wealthy."

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