We therefore enter the electoral campaign on Sunday. There will not be much question of culture, probably packed in the way, as usual. At least, outside the conservative field, party leaders will talk about its sister language, vying with promises to ensure its survival in times of decline.
French is like the environment: you have to see it hit a wall before seriously worrying about its fate. Look for culprits, we want: the Anglos who look down on us, the American culture in planetary invasion, immigration which transforms the landscape. Indisputable facts, hard to change. Looking in the mirror is harder.
Because everyone bears their share of responsibility in the current debacle. Including many Quebecers of the rising generations, who adopt Franglais without feeling sheepish. Also their elders who did not know how to guide them better than that.
We are indignant at the rout of French, after the recent publication of Statistics Canada figures showing an implacable decline in its use in the home. What Our language, stuck to the culture, to the identity, to the living history of Quebec, in decline, really, right down to its cradle? And how !
Some speak of crushed figures, but we will have seen the wave rise and crash. And so many successive governments, including those formed by the Parti Québécois, have made the bed of its setbacks. Erecting roadblocks against English, but without jostling the people, without taking real measures to improve the quality of the collective language, without teaching it rigorously. It must be said that not many people want to teach with us. Without volunteers, students will be piled into crowded classrooms.
Who, at the top, valued the transmission of knowledge, bet on common responsibility or sought to arouse intellectual curiosity? The problem had been rumbling for a long time in the schools. The children had to be passed, dunces and literates included, otherwise the parents would protest and the Ministry of Education would be slapped on the knuckles. Leveling down has its price. We can see it well. Because we pay for it.
Quebecers are not children to be protected from themselves. It would be better to treat them as adults capable of raising their heads and improving themselves. From now on, in high places, the paternalism of the CAQ is going against the grain, which seems to reassure the electorate.
Do we speak French or Québécois on the shores of the St. Lawrence? Who among us wants to ask the question that kills? Failing to discuss this delicate issue, the answer remains in suspense, feet in the void, tongue hanging out, laughing eyes since humor is king.
Without beacons, over the decades, we thought we were allowed to do anything. And that I send you to waltz the rules of syntax. And that I send too sharp vocabulary words to oblivion. None of that with us! We have our talk. Oust! But the richness of international French also belongs to us. You have to be able to read works by French, Belgian, Guadeloupean or Senegalese writers without losing the thread. And Quebec authors in the first place. The illiteracy rate is so high in our ranks. Many cannot even decipher texts in Joual. That is to say…
Moreover, no one agrees on the nature of the Quebec language, which varies from region to region. We are right to be proud of our particularities. Our accent defines us. Even coronations participate in the national culture. But because we do not promote the learning of global French, a large number of Quebecers have turned away from it. We should have proudly registered within the Francophonie, to better push Paris to counter its Anglomania. Little by little, we let ourselves drift, isolating ourselves de facto. France has a bad language, but that’s no reason to abdicate here. Two feet from the United States, braced to the English-speaking ROC, we could do much better than that, without blaming only others.
Today, in the shops, in the streets of Montreal, we hear francophones talking in Franglais, if not in English, suddenly. Question of fashion, of snobbery. Existential choice. Let’s not blame young people for mastering the language of Shakespeare, which has become the language of international communications. It is the disdain shown towards French that hurts. It has become a vague language here, which makes people lose the desire to fight for it and which many are abandoning. Quebec has not sought to raise the collective linguistic level. The newcomers laugh about it. It insults us. We climb on our lugs. But we let go. Let’s get up! Without committing to a real change of course, the CAQ can speak to us of pride…