Premier François Legault’s statement that the future of the French language in Quebec is facing a great threat, that is to say the Louisiana scenario of the erasure of a language, appeared to us as a detonation quite spectacular.
Posted yesterday at 10:00 a.m.
Of course, to be serious, the government presented us with a statistical picture of the situation, saying it was concerned that some people speak a language other than French at home. Is it a form of assimilation, linguistic transfer, loss of the French language?
Prime Minister Legault presents us with a dramatic situation. The Quebec nation is falling into the insignificant, that is, the “Cajunization” of the Francophone identity, of a language threatened by English, doomed to wither away and to express itself in the nostalgia of a discourse of pride and folk culture. Joseph Facal writes of “Cajuns who play the banjo”, but rather wishes to speak of a “linguistic acadianization”. We also saw another columnist from the Montreal Journal telling us that Quebec had simply become a “big New Brunswick”.
Quebec is a beleaguered and threatened minority like the francophones outside Quebec who must be careful not to be swallowed up by the anglophone majority. This parallel with the condition of the French-speaking minority has become more visible in the Quebec imagination, disturbed by the intrusion of English into everyday life. Just look at how some people react to the culture of Franglais, a sort of Montreal chiac that thrives in urban culture.
Francophone under siege
I know this story of the beleaguered francophone minority well, having spent a large part of my life in Moncton, New Brunswick, within an Acadian society with multiple facets and compositions, which always makes me react when Quebec reduces identity to the marker of a certain French language.
What is playing out here is the story of a long development of Quebec nationalism as presented in Francine Pelletier’s documentary, Battle for the soul of Quebec. We recall that Quebec nationalism has been transformed since the years of the Quiet Revolution and the PQ government of René Lévesque; a nationalism that expressed an ambition to form a society in order to build a modern Quebec society. We know the rest of the score well. Something is happening after the narrow defeat of the sovereignty option in the 1995 referendum.
On the one hand, we blame the others, the immigrants, the English, accusing them of not supporting the Parti Québécois project. On the other hand, in a brief moment of introspection, we recognize that the Quebec nation has evolved and that it is necessary to engage in a reflection on the transformation of Quebec’s identity influenced by more global dynamics, globalization, ethnocultural diversity, civic nationalism.
This opening will be short-lived. In a turbulent period, Quebec nationalism retreated to a defense of the ethnic foundations of the Quebec nation. He sets out to defend the values of a nation besieged by demands from “others”.
This dichotomy between “us” and “them” is suffocating. It does not allow us to see anything other than a monist vision of identity.
Surprisingly, this debate on language and the management of immigration powers has brought the issue of Quebec sovereignty back to the fore. Bringing this question back on the stage does not really please the CAQ, which had to recall the importance of defending the nation of Quebec within Canada. On the other hand, as an electoral strategy, the Parti Québécois and the Liberals see it as an issue that could change voting intentions.
There is insecurity in the air and it revives the fault lines. It seems to me that it would be more interesting to look at the future with another sensitivity than that preached by the promoters of identity nationalism. There are other colors in the identity landscape of Quebec.