“Is it true that in winter you live in the underground city? »
Posted yesterday at 9:00 a.m.
“Are there many of you underground? »
I have just returned from a family stay in Paris, and to say that Quebec is fashionable is no exaggeration. In fact, the Quebec accent opens doors, arouses interest and is an excellent starting point for conversation, which sooner or later will end up in the famous underground city that confuses them. It is necessary, past the bewilderment, then the burst of laughter, to explain to them that the underground city is a myth intended for the visitors, that we do not arrange our private household there as of December 21, that we do not become zombies wandering through overheated corridors when the blizzard rages… In their eyes there is disbelief at this moment, followed by a bit of disappointment. After, only after, the real conversation can start.
Because Quebec is popular in France. Montrealers know it. The number of expats here, and more specifically in the Plateau-Mont-Royal, nicknamed the 21e arrondissement of Paris, exploded.
Affordable housing for their euros, jobs interesting in multimedia, and in the media as a whole — hello Radio-Canada! —, the attractions of Montreal are legion. And more and more, the French are investing Quebec, or different attractive cities or regions for these lovers of wide open spaces. In fact, in Paris, after two minutes, people tell you that they have a nephew, a sister, an expatriate acquaintance in Quebec, and that they are tempted, so how do you do it? Is the winter so harsh (yes), do you lock yourself in the underground city (here we are), and: do you still take it? (there is no embargo on the French).
PHOTO ALAIN ROBERGE, LA PRESSE ARCHIVES
Works from the Underground Art festival at the Palais des Congrès in 2020
The visiting Quebecer accustomed to France remains a little taken aback by this turnaround, which dates back barely five years. Previously, our accent was smiley at best, and generally felt condescending. What happened ? In fact, it’s not so much that we have changed, but THEY who are fed up with France.
Their society is suffocating, ossified. It is a society of not even concealed privileges, of elevator returns, while the social elevator is broken down, between oneself and closed doors. The cost of living is very high there, your future depends on the school you went to, who gives you a boost. Daily life there is exhausting, dotted with spontaneous strikes and social movements, the gap is spectacular between the way of life of the elites and that of ordinary people, the suburbs are a universe apart, society is divided on a multitude of themes. and everything is politicized.
In fact, roughly speaking, the French have the same concerns as us: inflation, uncertain future, threatened environment, left-right tensions, city-region dichotomy, but everything is infinitely more tense, more on edge, ready to explode.
Quebec appears to them as a new world, where everything breathes better. They see in it a liberation, a leeway that they no longer have. Opportunities.
They envy us our North Americanness about which they (and a good part of us) misunderstand. We are not their cousins. We were abandoned by France and shaped by the English Regime, are deeply rooted in the American continent, which we traveled from Illinois to Santa Fe, it shaped our airy and creative way of thinking.
We face the same globalized problems as the French, but we have more optimistic, debonair, looser solutions. This is what they vaguely envy us, this French-speaking North Americanness, this dazzling creativity, this ideological relaxation, this hope that we carry. Lately, when I return from France, I encapsulate this sincere and new admiration of the cousins, and tell myself that we should feed on it. It would lift our collective morale, which is sometimes wavering.
We tend, at the moment, to ruminate on our quarrels, to dig gaps between us, to diminish ourselves, to stand up in clear camps against each other. However, in Paris, we mystify them! We are admired, we are envied for our ability to move forward. Let’s say that it relativizes our national anxieties and that it instills above all a good dose of optimism. What if we believed in ourselves?
After all, a people capable of making the French believe that we have a formidable underground city where we hold low masses is capable of anything!