Is French in danger in Quebec?
Faced with the omnipresence of English, younger generations are abandoning the language of their parents and grandparents to communicate with non-French speaking people in their workplace.
This is the conclusion of the Office québécois de la langue française (OQLF) which published a report on March 7 on the language of work in the French-speaking Canadian province.
According to the study, conducted between May and September 2023 among 7,932 Quebecers with a professional life, the proportion of the working population of Quebec who uses French exclusively in the professional world increased from 37% to 32%.
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In the conclusion of the report, the OQLF specifies that if
"French still has its place in the Quebec labor market"
, the workers of La Belle Province
"increasingly accompany it with English as part of their functions”
.
The proportion of adult Quebecers using French
“at least 90% of the time in the context of their employment”
remains stable for the moment: they will be 66% in 2023, a figure similar to that of 2016 (67%) and 2010 (66%).
Many still prefer to work in French whenever they can (76%).
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A decline that has been observed since 2010
However, the exclusive use of French in the professional world has been declining since 2010. This decline has been observed since 2010 in favor of
“general use”
.
Indeed, the proportion of Quebecers using French exclusively at work increased from 39.5% in 2016 to reach 32.2% in 2023. This is particularly observed among young Quebecers aged 18 to 34 who are
“proportionally Fewer people prefer French as a working language
,” notes the OQLF.
In fact, there are only 70.9% compared to 79.2% of those aged 45 to 54.
In addition, there are half as many of them as the generations above making exclusive use of French at work with only 22.3% of them compared to 41.3% of people aged over 55.
“This shows that there is still a lot of work to be done for French to regain its rightful place.
Working in French is a right enshrined in the Charter of the French Language
,” reacted
the Minister of the French Language, Jean-François Roberge, to the Canadian newspaper
La Presse .
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Why do they use a language other than French at work?
Those surveyed cited two main reasons: 35% said that their immediate superiors or colleagues do not know French and 34% responded that they themselves do not use French in certain contexts.
In addition, 55% of them have to use English as a language of communication to interact with suppliers, 57% to speak with their non-French-speaking customers and 46% to consult or produce documentation intended externally.
Finally, Montreal wins the prize as the Quebec city that uses French the least at work.
The exclusive use of French has in fact
“decreased by 7.9 percentage points, from 46.7% in 2010 to 38.8% in 2023”
.