Dindon, Champignon, Cornichon!

Canada's rebel province is rocking the language boat…

Why are the Quebecois so determined to stop the spread of English?

The electoral victory in 2018 of the Coalition Avenir Quebec, whose members are known as the Caquistes, which based part of its campaign on immigration, was particularly alarming.

The leader of the CAQ, François Legault (67) warned that "Quebec has exceeded its integration capacity," proposing a reduction in the number of admitted immigrants, stricter controls and a French and culture exam coupled with the risk of expulsion if not passed.

A year later, in 2019, the province even denied residency to Emilie Dubois, a woman born and brought up in France, arguing she couldn't prove she could speak French. That was the year, the government proposed banning the popular greeting "Bonjour-hi".

To be fair, the Office Québécois de la Langue Française, a government body which employs 250 people, has in recent years also given the nod to English words like softball, baby boom and toast. Spokesman Jean-Pierre Le Blanc went so far as to describe the anglicisms as "part of our linguistic enrichment" - an astonishing concession for those familiar with Quebec's politics.

And yet, in 2022, the province's parliament passed Bill 96, which restricts the use of English in schools and public offices, even in doctors surgeries, to the detriment of some 500,000 of the English-speaking Quebecois. Which is a group that includes many of Canada's indigenous people.

The Assembly of First Nations called Bill 96 "a major step backwards" that harmed reconciliation efforts.

However, Quebec's French speakers are aware of their minority status given that only around one in five Canadians speaks French as a first language - and have been fiercely protective of their language's status under the law.

Last year, the French Language Ministry even paid people to paste stickers with French slogans on the sidewalks.

Candy-coloured stickers with slogans such as "Dindon, champignon, cornichon. Le français, ça sonne bien partout, même à l'épicerie" ("French sounds good everywhere, even at the grocery store") went down particularly badly in multicultural neighborhoods of Quebec like Parc-Extension. Montreal, in particular, is "historically very mixed" according to Jack Jedwab, president of an independent research center on migration, integration and inclusion and "advice" to people to sign up for refresher courses in French using a QR code came across more like "Grand Frère" than a fun initiative.

The sticker campaign is just a tiny part of Quebec's francization policy, spearheaded by Premier François Legault. At the heart of it, is Bill 96, passed by the province's parliament in 2022. Businesses and shops have been coopted to help fight in this linguistic crusade, while the stickers themselves were the city's initiative, funded by the French Language Ministry to the tune of $6,696 (€4,538).

Long before Bill 96, French had to be given equal precedence with English for all official government business throughout Canada, while in francophone Quebec everything from product labels to advertising posters must be displayed in French as well as English.

Businessmen Etienne Sanz de Acedo gives the example of a washing machine manufacturer, selling machines where the identification of the different compartments (detergents, fabric softeners, etc.) are engraved in English. Sanz de Acedo says that translating these markings would mean that manufacturers would have to change their production molds and that would entail considerable costs. In 2013, a Montreal brasserie owner complained to the Canadian broadcaster CBC that language inspectors had even told him to cover an "on/off" label on a hot water switch because it did not include the French translation: Allumé/ éteint. An Italian restaurant received a letter from the language police ordering them to stop serving "pasta" and "antipasti" and start serving "pates" and "hors d'oeuvres".

The letter generated a public outcry, dubbed "Pastagate", against the Office Québécois de la Langue Française's heavy-handed attitude, with some accusing the body of abusing its powers.

Alongside the indigenous communities, it is students who feel particularly under attack by the language campaigns. In 2023, two new laws, which came on the heels of a new language charter the government passed in 2022 - an update to Bill 101, possibly the most contested piece of legislation in Quebec history, seemed like a brazen attack.

The Quebec government announced that henceforth "out of province" students would have to pay the entire cost of their education. This, even as Quebec's own students could study in other provinces for free. Graduates would have to pass a strict French language test, oh and the changes would take place immediately. The policy didn't name any specific universities, but McGill and Concordia were the obvious targets. Combined, the schools attracted by far the most out-of-province students, the majority of whom were English speakers. 

The message to English-speaking students was unambiguous: "Stay away. We don't want you here." The Quebec government was waging war on the English – again.

Framing the language war in militaristic terms isn't hyperbole either, because the Quebec government constantly invokes the combative metaphors. Before outlining a 50-point action plan to protect French, Quebec's minister of the French language, Jean-François Roberge, said "It's time to regain some ground." Before he became premier, François Legault told supporters it was time to push for a new "Quiet Revolution". After meeting with university leaders at McGill and Concordia, Legault even said that the schools were too big compared to their French counterparts and that they "threatened the survival of French."

Quebec was restarting the battles of the 1960s, which saw more than 10,000 people march down Sherbrooke Street to McGill's gates, crying "McGill aux Québécois!" and demanding the college become French speaking. It is said that English students on the other side of the gate responded by singing "God Save the Queen".

Today, Quebec's government is again driven by a sense that it is losing the "language war". They know that the 2021 census data showed that the proportion of people using French as their mother-tongue in Quebec had declined from 81% of the population in 2001 to 75% twenty years later, a small decline yet one that stoked panic in some circles. At that rate, in fifty years, Quebec would have become majority anglophone!

It's true that the number of Quebecois with French as their mother tongue is in SLOW decline. Yet, at the same time, more and more people are using French. According to Statistics Canada, 75% of Quebecois say French is their first language and 94% that they have knowledge of French.

Jean-Pierre Corbeil, Laval University professor and former head of language data at Statistics Canada, warns the Quebec government is just playing politics. "People are saying, 'Well, just knowing French is not enough.' Well, in fact, we know that 96 per cent of people who know French, who are able to speak it, use it on a regular basis at work", he told CTV News.

Political analyst David Heurtel also warns that the government is spinning the data to appeal to its base.

"To say just openly and without any questioning that the French language is in jeopardy, in dire jeopardy, is just not accurate." He said the CAQ is too focused on what language Quebecois use at home, not in the wider world.

"The Legault government's position now is basically founded on, 'Well, immigrants aren't speaking French at home.' That's not the criteria. The criteria is what is the common language in the work space, in the public space."

Nonetheless, come the spring of 2022, Bill 96 passed, making it obligatory for government employees, including doctors and nurses, to speak and write exclusively in French. It gave immigrants only a brief six-month window after arriving to learn French or be effectively blocked from all public services. Businesses would be forced to make French websites and to report how many of their employees couldn't speak French. And all graduating students had to pass a difficult French exam.

The bill has led to multiple suits against the government from plaintiffs who claim to be victims of discrimination and unable to access essential services.

The irony is that French is not under threat in Quebec. If only half of people on the island of Montreal reported speaking French at home - that figure ignores the 332,000 multilingual Montrealers who speak French along with other languages.

So, French is not in decline, it is more than ever the common language of Quebec and of Montreal. The only thing in decline, slightly, is unilingual francophones. 

Ironically and perhaps because French Canadians have a fear of being discriminated against as they were in the early days of Canada, they are using their political dominance to enact discriminatory laws attacking the other communities in the province. Where once the French community championed diversity and inclusiveness, they now increasingly embrace a right-wing agenda that includes attacks on immigrants and "wokeness", claiming for themselves exclusive responsibility for Quebec's values.