They describe themselves as a "Left-wing independentist movement" which "fights for the emancipation and the national liberation of the Breton people and their direct representation in European authorities".
It was formed in 1983 by radical militants within the Breton independence movement after the sudden shift in French politics caused by the 1981 election of a leftist government.
Emgann's 1988 manifesto also emphasises the importance of solidarity with other national liberation movements, citing Basque nationalists as an example.
Emgann claims that it does not approve of the violent actions of the ARB, but it doesn't disapprove either, treating them instead as "a logical consequence of the colonialist French state and the desperation of young Bretons."
However, several members of Emgann were arrested and convicted by French courts as accomplices in the theft of several tonnes of explosives from a Breton company in Plévin (Côtes-d'Armor) in 1999.