Since the recent publication by Statistics Canada of linguistic data from the 2021 census, the decline of French has been very much in the news. The general tone was one of legitimate concern for the future of Molière’s language across Canada.
Posted yesterday at 1:00 p.m.
I will focus here on the situation in Quebec, particularly that of Greater Montreal. My angle will be that of the occupation of the territory.
Montreal, over a long period
Let us first consider the demolinguistic evolution within the Montreal Metropolitan Region (CMA) over 50 years (1971-2021).
The 1970s and following years were marked by a titanic movement of urban sprawl. What better way to illustrate it than this:
– compared to 1971, there are now 367,000 fewer Francophones on the Island of Montréal, compared to 1,091,000 more in the rest of the CMA;
– in 1971, 68% of Francophones in the current CMA lived on the island of Montreal. Today, this rate is only 34%.
This proves that the decline of French in Montreal, from 63% in 1971 to 47% in 2021, results first and foremost from the exodus of French speakers for the outlying suburbs.
The sprawl is certainly not due to Anglophones, since there are nearly 210,000 less today than in 1971 in the CMA. In this regard, it will be recalled that the election of the first Lévesque government in 1976 triggered a strong exodus of Anglophones from Montreal, mainly to Toronto:
– since the turn of the year 2000, the situation of Anglophones has stabilized relatively around 12% of the population of the CMA (18% in Montreal, 7% in the suburbs).
As everyone knows, immigrants with a mother tongue other than French or English have demographically taken over:
– there are now 438,000 more in Montreal and, just as significantly, 312,000 more in its suburbs;
– this is why they now represent 35% of the population in Montreal, compared to 10% in 1971. In the rest of the CMA, the rate has gone from 5% to 16%.
I will limit myself from here to the last 10 years (2011-2021), but by broadening my remarks to all of the realities of Montreal and the regions of Quebec.
Montreal for 10 years
The first thing to point out is a very clear territorial gradient of the Francophonie:
– in 2021, there were 47% of Francophones on the island of Montreal, 63% in the first ring, 85% in the second ring, 92% in the third ring.
Between 2011 and 2021, French has declined in each of these territories:
– 1.6% in Montreal;
– decreasing according to the distance in the crowns: -6.4% in the first crown, -3.3% in the second crown, -0.8% in the third crown.
Conversely, non-official languages have progressed everywhere:
– 1.3% in Montreal;
– again, decreasing according to the distance in the crowns: +5.9% in the first crown, +3.4% in the second crown, barely 0.6% in the third crown.
Quebec and its regions for 10 years
Overall, French has declined by nearly 2% in Quebec over the past decade, going from 79.6% to 77.7%.
Again on this scale of all of Quebec, the decline of French, outside the island of Montreal, is decreasing according to the distance from it:
– minus 3.4% in the suburbs of Montreal, -1.5% in the regions of central Quebec, against -0.2% in the remote regions;
– we saw earlier that the rings of Montreal are made up of three subsets, themselves marked by a decreasing gradient;
– in fact, beyond the territory of the CMA-Montréal, the Francophonie rate is 92% everywhere in Quebec and the decline of French there is almost anecdotal.
abandoned Montreal
Everyone interprets language statistics in their own way, by choosing their favorite indicator: mother tongue, language spoken at home or at work, language used in the public space, bilingualism rate, language transfer rate, etc. Everyone thus manages to build their personal theory on the state of French in Montreal and Quebec.
For my part, I favored the simplest indicator and which seems to me to have the most lasting consequences: mother tongue, single answer. We can certainly discuss my figures. Nevertheless, they illustrate a conclusion that worries me the most:
– considered from the perspective of mainstream trends, Francophones seem to operate a kind of “territorial withdrawal” leading them to gradually abandon Montreal as a place to live;
– this “territorial withdrawal” even tends to reach the entire metropolitan region of Montreal, as can already be seen clearly in Laval and to a lesser extent in Longueuil (MRC).
Which brings me to this question, painful to ask: in 2050, will the indisputably French-speaking Quebec have shrunk to its central and remote regions?