Editorial: Time for a reality check on ‘the decline of French’

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The previous few years have been a roller-coaster for English-speaking Quebecers, allophones and immigrants as punitive legal guidelines have been adopted, rights trampled and establishments undermined, all within the identify of reversing the decline of the French language.

However current information suggests French in Quebec is on extra strong footing than the federal government of Premier François Legault has claimed in justifying a few of its extra drastic insurance policies.

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A examine by l’Workplace québécois de la langue française discovered that using French within the public sphere has been steady over the previous 15 years whereas using English has dropped off. A survey of seven,200 Quebecers carried out in 2022 discovered 79 per cent spoke French most frequently outdoors the house, the identical as in 2007 and up barely from 78 per cent in 2016. Even amongst anglophones, French in public rose to 25 per cent from 20 per cent between 2016 and 2022.

On the island of Montreal, usually the topic of a lot hand-wringing over the “Bonjour-Hello” greeting in downtown companies, using English dipped to about 17 per cent in 2022 from 23 per cent in 2016.

The OQLF barometer comes on the heels of a guide revealed final yr questioning the prevailing narrative that French is in free fall. Le Français en déclin? Repenser la francophonie québécoise posits that French will at all times be weak in North America’s final francophone redoubt, however that politicians, pundits and policymakers appear to give attention to the unsuitable information — mom tongue and the language spoken most regularly at dwelling — in assessing how French is doing.

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The true portrait is extra nuanced, a number of the authors lately defined at a panel dialogue organized by the Quebec Neighborhood Teams Community and sponsored by The Gazette and the Notre Dwelling Basis. This ignores lots of the successes of the French Language Constitution in integrating newcomers over almost 50 years and paints an unnecessarily grim image.

Not all the most recent statistics are rosy. A current examine by French language commissioner Benoît Dubreuil pointed to main challenges in making certain non-permanent immigrants to Quebec grasp French as this inhabitants surpasses 500,000. The speed of newcomers who can not maintain a dialog in French is alleged to have tripled amongst worldwide college students, short-term overseas employees and asylum seekers in simply two years.

Nonetheless, new proof and recent views are elevating severe crimson flags concerning the Legault authorities’s divisive method to the vital goal of defending and selling French.

The OQLF examine interval predates the implementation of harsh new measures of Invoice 96 (now Legislation 14), Quebec’s replace to language legal guidelines, demanding that we ask if it was actually warranted to offer the language watchdog extrajudicial search and seizure powers, require immigrants to obtain public companies in French solely six months after arriving, and defend the legislation from courtroom challenges with the however clause, to call a number of examples.

In mild of the OQLF’s findings, the Quebec department of the Retail Council of Canada is asking on the Legault authorities to rethink rules pertaining to French markings on merchandise like dwelling home equipment, which it argues might damage retailers, the economic system and shoppers.

And scapegoating asylum seekers or college college students from the remainder of Canada for anglicizing Quebec solely whips up resentment when an inclusive technique for safeguarding French might be extra constructive.

This actuality verify on the well being of French affords a chance to each rethink the federal government’s linguistic insurance policies and ratchet down the polarizing rhetoric.

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