A couple living near Angers (Maine-et-Loire department) named their son, who was born in July 2023, after the Breton first name Fañch (equivalent to François), with a wavy line (tilde) on the “n”. The mother is Breton; Angers is about 30 kilometers from the border of the Loire-Atlantique department, which is part of historical Brittany, although it was split off from the present-day Brittany region in the mid-20th century. Bretons have been fighting for years to have Brittany reunified.

The public prosecutor's office in Angers believes that the Breton first name is inadmissible and has initiated legal proceedings. The couple challenged this measure at the Court of Appeal in Angers on December 19, 2024, as reported by the daily newspaper “Ouest France”.

The public prosecutor of Angers is asking the family court judge to ensure that the child is given a different first name, with or without the consent of the parents. The public prosecutor's office argues that the freedom of parents to choose names for their children has limits: “The language of the Republic is French,” according to Article 2 of the French constitution, therefore French is the only permissible official language of the state, and because the tilde on the n does not exist in French, it is not allowed to give the child the name Fañch.

There have been several court cases in France because of supposedly inadmissible letters in a first name. As the Quimper Regional Court ruled in 2017, allowing the tilde on the n would “break the will of our constitutional state to maintain the unity of the country and equality without distinction of origin”. Nevertheless, the granting of the Breton first name was confirmed as admissible in the last instance at the time. However, a ministerial circular from 2014, in which the diacritical marks permitted for certain letters are listed (in Tahitian, Catalan, Creole, Occitan, Alsatian dialect and Corsican), was never extended to include the Breton n with tilde, so that any parents who want to give their child a name like Fañch must legally enforce this wish if necessary. A law that should have provided clarity was passed by a large majority in the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies in 2021, but the Constitutional Court later declared it unconstitutional.

Update: A court in Lorient confirmed on 24 February that it is legal to give a child the Breton first name Fañch, including the tilde. "This decision gives Brittany a new precedent for recognising its linguistic characteristics. A symbolic step forward for the Breton language and its defenders", writes the Breton press agency ABP.