"French is not a cause of the past but an oath for the future
," said Quebec Justice Minister Simon Jolin-Barrette, who since June 1, 2022 has also been at the head of the new Ministry of the French Language. .
Thursday, June 25, in the large session hall of the Institut de France, it was in front of an audience of academicians that he presented the new version of the Charter of the French language of Quebec, adopted at the Assembly national on May 24.
This piece of legislation, known as Law 96, aims to reinforce vigilance in terms of respect for the official language.
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In Quebec, the French language in decline
“”Minister of the French Language”, it is a poetic title, almost improbable, like that of “Immortals””
, amused the minister.
And for good reason, the links between the French Academy and this province of
“a few acres of snow”
, as Voltaire called it, are linked.
In her inaugural speech, Permanent Secretary Hélène Carrère d'Encausse recalled that for five centuries, their common destiny has been to ensure the preservation of the language of Molière.
In Quebec, this translates into a struggle against the domination of English.
A struggle that spanned the official recognition of French by the British Crown in 1774, the proclamation of French as an official language in the Constitutional Act of 1867, and the adoption of the Charter of the French Language (Bill 101) in 1977. As engine of the country's independence, it is therefore necessary to preserve French.
What does this law provide?
Bill 96 consists of making French the language of reference, both in the world of public administration, as well as that of commerce, business, work and education in Quebec.
Despite the adoption of Bill 101 45 years ago,
“the continental linguistic dynamic favors the growing use of English, which has become the language of globalization,”
explained Simon Jolin-Barrette.
At work in particular, where discriminatory employment practices for those who do not speak English are legion.
A dynamic that reverberates in all spheres of society, including education.
Children are in fact required to attend a French-language school until the end of their secondary studies, but the Minister was able to observe that more and more students, particularly those whose mother tongue is neither French nor English, go to English-speaking higher education establishments.
Thus, Law 96 will now regulate the number of students heading for these studies, just as the Ministry of the French Language will ensure that it supports ministries, government and municipal bodies in the application of the State's language policy. .
So many provisions that are already sowing discord.
Due in particular to the fact that
"30% of English mother tongue people and 23% of other mother tongue people say they are unable to carry on a conversation in French in Quebec"
, according to a study by the Office québécois de la langue française (OQLF) conducted in 2016. But
"our objective is to make French the center of convergence of integration as a fact of culture and civilization",
indicated the minister.
