Pro-autonomy parties Breton Democratic Union (UDB) and Movement Brittany Progress (MBP) will be running in a joint list in December's election to the Regional Council of Brittany. UDB members approved the bid with 73% of votes in favour of the coalition.

MBP leader Chirstian Troadec and UDP spokesman Nil Caouissin told Le Télégramme that both parties have agreed to form a coalition which, according to Troadec, needs to become "a platform that unites Brittany's forces of progress."

UDB's choice signals a change of direction in the party's traditional strategy to reach pre-eleccion deals with either the Socialist Party (PS) or the Greens.

Breton sources told Nationalia that the UDB's party bases are disappointed with the PS, as the socialist majority in the French National Assembly did not accept a proposal to re-unite Brittany into one single official region last year. The same sources said that, while some UDB sectors are reluctant to Troadec, they also acknowledge that the Bonnets Rouges' leader is the most prominent, well-known Breton pro-autonomy leader. Contrary to other Breton leaders, Troadec enjoys some deal of presence in the French media. The MBP leader is even willing to run for the 2017 French presidential election.

Coalition to target 10% threshold goal

Elections to regional councils in France are held under a double-round system. If no list gathers 50% of the votes in the first round, all the lists having achieved 10% go the second round. The pro-autonomy coalition thus needs to overcome that 10% threshold in order to enter the Regional Council of Brittany on its own. If a list stands at between 5% and 10% of the votes in the first round, it can join another list in the second round.

If the UDB-MBP list cleared the threshold, it could enter into negotiations with the winning list on a government coalition or external support in exchange for political attainments, especially if the socialists win the vote. Current French minister of Defence Jean-Yves Le Drian is considering to again lead the PS in the Breton election -he did so in 2010. Even though electoral hopes for the PS are dire throughout France, Brittany is be one of the few places where the socialists could still lead the vote. For them to keep the Breton government, the pro-autonomy coalition could become an indispensable ally.

In the 2010 Breton election, MBP reached 4.3% of the votes, running in coalition with the Breton Party (PB), which says it wants to support Troadec again. UDB ran in a coalition with the Greens: their joint list secured 12.2% of the votes. At that moment, Troadec was less well known than he now is, the Bonnets Rouges did not even exist, and Brittany was still hoping to get re-unification under a PS-led French government, which is no longer the case.