ABSTRACT
When postwar conditions eventually permitted versions of the TCF’s “Old France Weeks” to be held across the country, the events unfolded as part of a broader touristic mise en scène (production/projection) of regional territories and cultures that had garnered new momentum and support in Paris and within the regions themselves. The climactic moment of the first official Semaine Touristique (“Tourist Week”) in 1923 in Finistère took place on the event’s final day, with the much-anticipated arrival of the French Minister of Public Works and Tourism Yves le Trocquer in the departmental capital of Quimper. That Trocquer was himself of Breton origin had a great deal to do with the excitement suffusing the large crowd assembled to greet him at the city’s train station. But beyond marking the return of a successful native son of national stature, the Minister’s visit signaled as well to many of the Breton political, business and tourist leaders, residents of Quimper and its environs, and tourists in attendance the suddenly improved prospects for the region in the early twenties. The official neglect and negative stereotyping the region had long suffered seemed to be ceding some ground in the aftermath of the war to the hope that new resources and attention might be directed to the region, and particularly to its neediest outer department.
