On September 8, the delegates of the National Federation of Teachers of Quebec (FNEEQ), meeting in Trois-Rivières in a special council, voted for the subjection of the college network to Bill 101. It is a great victory for the future of French! The FNEEQ, which represents 35,000 professors, thus becomes the first union federation to take a position in favor of the application of Bill 101 at the college level.
For the Regroupement pour le cégep français (RCF), this “extraordinary council of the FNEEQ” turned out to be an “extraordinary council”… We are convinced that there will be a before and an after Trois-Rivières.
The CEGEP teachers, members of our group, will have powerfully contributed to this historic turnaround. They are delighted today that the voices of the trade union base are heard at the highest levels. A strong majority of 41 of the CEGEP teachers’ unions voted, in a union assembly, for the application of Bill 101 to colleges. Their voice needed to be heard and it was.
Over the years, we have watched, powerless, the decline of French in the college network. From 1995 to 2022, the English sector has doubled its weight compared to that of the English-speaking community (8.8%), to reach nearly 19% of the network’s clientele. The Act respecting the official and common language of Quebec, French (PL96) caps this percentage at its highest historical rate, thus setting in stone this unprecedented growth of English CEGEPs.
However, simply to maintain both the relative weight of French in Quebec and its vitality index, as repeated in unison by Simon Jolin-Barrette and several sociolinguists, it is urgent to raise the rate of francization of immigrants from 55% to 90%. To do this, allophones must converge on the French network, and come and contribute to enriching a diversity that we are calling for.
Caroline Quesnel, president of the FNEEQ, we want to tell you, with all the emotion and passion for French of which we are capable, that the RCF will unite behind you.
We would like to congratulate and thank all our fellow professors who contributed to this historic victory.
For French, all hopes are now allowed!
*Have also co-signed this text: Yannick Lacroix, Nicolas Bourdon, Georges-Rémy Fortin, Sébastien Mussi, Caroline Hébert, Frédéric Belzile, Aïcha Van Dun, Gabriel Coulombe, Alexis Vaillancourt-Chartrand, Mathieu Bélisle, Stéphane Beauregard and Gino Bergeron.