The Legault government has produced an ad riddled with Anglicism that compares the current state of French in Quebec to an endangered species.
Quebec will not skimp on the means to sensitize the population to the decline of French. This advertisement, the first action in a mobilization campaign that will run for three years, cost the government $500,000.
This includes production, post-production and placement costs in the various media, said the office of the Minister of the French Language, Jean-François Roberge.
A “really sick” bird
Shot like a wildlife documentary, the video features a bird that is on the list of threatened or vulnerable species in Quebec.
“The peregrine falcon, this really ‘sick’ bird, is known to be quite ‘chill’, because it’s super quick in flight,” says the ad’s narrator. He can spend most of his time “watching” his environment. But despite his hunting “skills” being insane, the future of the peregrine falcon remains “sketch”.
In the corridors of parliament, Jean-François Roberge recalled that the government of Quebec has taken strong measures to help this hope “very threatened in the 1970s”, and that it is now “in a better position”.
“We can do the same thing with the French language,” believes the minister.
Humor
The avowed objective of the campaign is to “get people talking,” added Mr. Roberge. “We went with a note of humor, but at the same time, I think there are many Quebecers who, hearing this ad a little bit in Franglais, will say to themselves: “it’s true, sometimes , we escape it “”, he illustrated.
If he recognizes that this advertisement is “effective”, the president of the French Movement Quebec, Maxime Laporte, did not laugh when he viewed it.
“The critical situation in which the French finds itself is no laughing matter, but I recognize the talent of those who worked on the production of the advertisement,” he commented in an interview.
Mr. Laporte is of the opinion that we will not reverse the trend of the decline of French with an advertising campaign.
“The means to achieve this vital objective, we know them: restoration of the original provisions of Bill 101, extending Bill 101 to CEGEP, repatriation of immigration powers, and so on. In short, the ball is in the court of the minister and his government,” he argued.