The French language occupies a fundamental place in Quebec society. It is the language of culture, politics, and everyday life. The French fact in North America is a particularity celebrated by French-speaking Quebecers and all those who value diversity. However, everywhere in Quebec, people have a less positive relationship with the French language. From Kanesatake to Montréal-Nord, many tell us about their relationship with French. Bill 96, which became law and came into force last June, aims to strengthen the French language in society.
As such, this law affects many areas, including health, education and immigration. Among the changes it brings about, among others, additional French courses in English-speaking CEGEPs, the obligation for immigrants to learn the French language in six months, and the establishment of French as a mandatory language in public services, unless they are part of a historically English-speaking community.
“French courses are not enough”
Photo: Fatima Bah
“Six months is not enough time to learn a language. When we talk about a language, we are talking about a culture, about a way of thinking. It's not just about saying a word over and over again,” says Hany Shokair, a student at Concordia University. For him, it was a shock to hear about section 22 of Bill 96. This article requires administrative agencies to offer services exclusively in French to immigrants at the end of the period of six months following their arrival in Quebec. Hany himself went through this migration stage after entering the province in 2019 as a Syrian refugee.
He sided with several experts who denounce this article of law, considering it discriminatory. Sitting in front of a table in his kitchen, the young man explains his experience during these first months in Quebec and his experience in French classes. As a refugee, he was forced to leave his life, and everything he had built, to come to a country where he had no bearings. He was enrolled in French courses by the person who was in charge of his file, a few weeks after his arrival. For Hany, francization was a very difficult test: “It literally took me two months to understand that the “a” and the “e” are pronounced differently in French and in English.” According to him, forcing people who flee their country and have a painful past to master a new language in six months is to minimize their trauma and their past. “When I was in school, my brain thought about my problems, I was not in good conditions to learn French.” In itself, the migration process is a heavy burden that these individuals have to overcome by experiencing a lot of stress.
For the student of Syrian origin, francization courses were also one of his only sources of income. “During my six or seven months at school, I was mentally not ready to learn French. I was just worried that if I missed a class, the government wouldn't pay me and I wouldn't be able to pay my rent,” he said. It is in his apartment in Vieux-Rosemont, which he shares with another foreign student that the young man continues: “We were learning everything so quickly! For example, one week we were learning verbs in the present tense and the following week we were learning the past tense.”
At the end of his courses, Hany did not have a good level of French. After seven months of francization, he was only able to find a job as a clerk in a grocery store. “Even with my level, my employers did not trust me enough to let me work long hours,” explains this graduate in international relations and engineering from Syria and Lebanon.
Facing so many difficulties in learning French, Hany decided to turn to McGill University to improve his English. He feels that the English system is more adapted to his reality. “I was in a university system and I had more practice time, but the most important thing was to have a mental support service and counsellors,” tells us the sexology student at Concordia University, who still continues to practice his French as part of his volunteer involvement.
The French network is not as welcoming to immigrants
Photo: Ramy Berkani
Hany Shokair's career is reminiscent of that of Djazia Bousnina, a young Algerian who graduated in political science at Concordia.
Seated in a comfortable armchair in the green space of Pierre-Laporte Park, in Montréal-Nord, Djazia explains to us her particular relationship with the French language. The young Montreal woman emigrated from Algeria about ten years ago with the rest of her family. She speaks French fluently. All those around him, including of course his friends and family, speak only French and Arabic. She therefore has no difficulty integrating linguistically. Arriving in Quebec, she attended a French high school in Anjou. However, a few years later, Djazia made the choice to stop living in French. When asked about this choice, she doesn't mince words. “It's not a language I have a lot of affinity with,” she confides. Especially when my grandfather knew that I spoke French in Quebec, he was really upset.
My grandfather is an Algerian. He lived through the Algerian War, independence. It really touched him when he knew that we, here, spoke French. During this time, I also started reading, which really opened my mind to the reality of colonization in Algeria by France.” But it is not only Algeria's colonial past that separates young Montrealers from French. Her experience in the English-speaking world was completely different from that in the French-speaking world, she says with emotion. She adds that she has experienced more situations of exclusion at work and at school in French-speaking environments.
According to her, there is an openness, sensitivity, academic support and an understanding of the reality of the most important immigrants in English-speaking environments in Quebec. At the end of her high school studies, Djazia decided to leave the French-language network completely. Head to Dawson, an English-speaking CEGEP, then Concordia, an English-speaking university. “The support we give you is so great, especially when you come from a French-language school,” she says. We ask you if you come from a French-speaking high school, then you have services that are really available for you,” reports the young graduate.
Today, Djazia Bousnina thinks that her post-secondary studies would have been very difficult if she had done them in French. “I think that I would have succeeded in my studies, because I am an immigrant and there is a lot of pressure on ourselves, but I don't think I would have liked my career and I don't think I would have dared to study politics.”
Djazia does not see the need for Law 96. For her, asking people who speak several languages to live only in one language, French, is utopian. This only results in people with diverse cultural backgrounds not being able to thrive in different cultures. “Imagine saying to someone, “Stop being rich, get poorer.” That's what people are asked for. Stop being rich, get poorer! It's crazy, because you would never say that to anyone.
But the State asks for it, the State erases people [...] it is a cultural erasure, and we allow it because we do not see culture as social capital. It is seen as a social disadvantage.”
Djazia recognizes that her relationship with French has evolved, in particular thanks to some of her favorite authors, including Frantz Fanon and Ocean Vuong. Although she tells us that, in the past, she was very keen not to live in French, today she has changed her mind. She now sees French in Quebec as a great decolonial power. “Many revolutionaries wrote in French and created a system of revolution, challenges, a new dynamic in French. Now I am reconsidering writing in French.”
Hany and Djazia tell us that they might have made the choice to continue their studies in French if they had received a better welcome in the Quebec French-speaking network.
Forgotten traditional Aboriginal languages
Photo: Fatima Bah
The colonial heritage associated with French is also being felt on indigenous territories, where the concerns caused by Law 96 are very strong. In Kahnawake and Kanesatake, several residents tell us that they have other priorities than the protection of French in Quebec, being more concerned about the consequences of intergenerational trauma and the revitalization of Kanien'kéha, the Mohawk language. Exasperation with the French language and the demands of Quebecers comes up in each of our encounters with Aboriginal people on both reserves. They all say the same thing: Indigenous languages are in danger. Protecting and revitalizing them are the priorities of Aboriginal people, not speaking French, which is a colonial language for them. “How many times has someone said to me, 'Speak in French, '” Teiawenhniseráhte Jeremy Tomlinson, director of the Kanesatake Health Center, tells us. To that, I often answer: “Technically, you are on Kanien'kehá:ka territory.
You are lucky that I am not asking you to speak Mohawk.” “French-speaking Quebecers are proud of their language,” assures Jeff, an elder on the Kahnawake reserve who prefers to keep his full name quiet. “Good for them. What about us? We too are proud of our language. You are not trying to speak our language. Why do you want us to speak yours? ” He asked. The Kahnawake Band Council has established Mohawk classes to allow young people to learn their traditional language in schools. The same initiative was taken on the Mohawk territory of Kanesatake, where the number of people who speak Kanien'kéha is only decreasing. “9 years ago, there were 150 people who spoke our language here in Kanesatake; today, there are less than 40 left,” laments Teiawenhniseráhte Jeremy Tomlinson. In the Kanesatake Health Center, it's hard not to notice the signs from the various departments.
They are in three languages: English, which appears first at the top of the posters, then Kanien'kéha just below, and finally French, which is at the bottom in smaller print. Elsewhere, on a poster, patients entering are asked to wash their hands, first in English, then in French and finally in Kanien'kéha. The director of the health center is not worried about having to change his posters to put French first. “They [the Quebec government] can try, but I am not worried. I think there is a line that should not be crossed,” he replies. Even though the law provides exceptions for historically English-speaking communities like Kanesatake, communities are concerned that these directives, which come from the highest levels, may not necessarily be applied at the lowest level of the hierarchy. People from English-speaking Aboriginal communities with whom we spoke are concerned that Bill 96 may have some perverse effects. “I have spoken with several seniors, and there is a lot of stress because they are in a period of their lives when they need health care the most,” Teiawenhniseráhte worries. Bill 96 requires that health care be provided in French, except in certain situations.
A few weeks ago, in the community of Kanesatake, an elder suffered a heart attack. He decided to go to the hospital in Hawkesbury, Ontario, about 45 minutes away from Mohawk territory, rather than Saint-Eustache, a few minutes away. “It's to get service in the language he understands and in which he feels most comfortable,” answers Jeremy Tomlinson when asked what prompted this elder to go so far. The elder had a heart attack in the hospital waiting room. Unable to resuscitate him, the hospital took him to another institute in Ottawa, where he ended up losing his life. Without saying that this elder died because of Bill 96, Teiawenhniseráhte believes that this situation illustrates the apprehensions of English-speaking Aboriginals about French-speaking health services. And health is not the only area affected by this law.
Unlike the children under Bill 101, for whom places are capped, English-speaking Aboriginal students will be able to attend college in English without limits. However, like all students in English-speaking CEGEPs, they will have to take three additional courses in French or French instead of two courses in French. Teiawenhniseráhte is concerned that English-speaking Aboriginal youth, who have a very high school dropout rate, will have even more difficulty getting their college diploma because of this provision of Bill 96. Instead, with a view to reconciliation, he suggests that Indigenous students should be accommodated and given the opportunity to learn Kanien'kéha to complete their college studies. In a context where efforts are being made to revitalize Indigenous languages and cultures, Jeremy Tomlinson is concerned that Bill 96 will reignite tensions between Indigenous and Francophone communities.
He cites the fact that Aboriginal people are poorly consulted on decisions that affect them on a daily basis to explain, among other things, the poor relationships between the Government of Quebec and Aboriginal people. The director of the Kanesatake Health Center puts this forward by recalling the negative experience he had at the Quebec National Assembly, where he went to debate Bill 96. “They gave me 15 minutes to speak, and while I started speaking, they cut off my speaking time because there were technical problems.”
“Honestly, I think it was too long before we had a real nation-to-nation meeting,” says the former chief of the Kanesatake band council. According to him, it is more than essential that the interests of his community be protected and that the government takes them into account.
“We don't want a colonial language”
Photo: Ramy Berkani
Lynn Delisle and Marlyn Kane, two seniors from Kahnawake, never had the chance to learn to speak Kanien'kéha. They welcome us to their home to discuss their relationship with language. In Lynn's garden, a sign against Bill 96 is prominently placed. In order to protect the French language in Quebec, the law on the official and common language of Quebec encourages the population to learn and speak French. This takes Lynn Delisle and Marlyn Kane back to the time when we tried to assimilate Aboriginal people. “Maybe we're too sensitive to people forcing anything on us...” reacts Lynn Delisle, one of the founding mothers of Step by Step, Family and Child Centre in Kahnawake. Today, numerous initiatives are being put in place in Kahnawake to protect the Mohawk language. Lynn and Marlyn tell us that they could not take advantage of these kinds of initiatives when they attended English school. “We are almost like the sacrificed generation.
Although, among these other generations, some have been punished for speaking their language,” Lynn Delisle tells us. Marlyn Kane agrees. The grandmothers tell us that for them, language is an important part of their culture and that it establishes a bridge with Aboriginal youth. For them and for many Indigenous people from different communities, change has not always meant something good. “Speaking French would make our lives easier,” explains Lynn. We would have jobs. We would have more influence on the Quebec government.”
She continues: “People say, 'No, we're not going to learn French. We are not French-speaking.” I look at them and I say, “We're not English speakers either.”” As the discussion progresses, we understand that, what bothers her, is rather the fact that Bill 96 imposes a language that is not theirs, again. “It's not a way of doing things, and I see it so often, and I see it so often that it's never comforting... We're not asked where we are with French., if you need support for the French language and Francophone culture. Imagine if they had come to us [the indigenous peoples] that way. They're going to war instead of collaborating,” Lynn concludes.
What the government says
La Converse questioned the office of the minister responsible for French and francization, Simon Jolin-Barrette, about the concerns raised by our speakers. With regard to fears related to the application of the law in health and social services, the minister's office told us that Bill 96 “is very clear on the issue of health care” and that it will not prevent a citizen from being adequately cared for, adding that an amendment had been added to reassure English-speaking Quebecers and that exceptions were provided for in Bill 96 in terms of health, safety or when the principles of justice were added. natural require it.
However, the cabinet did not specify how it will ensure that the amendments are respected at all levels. On the issue of Aboriginal languages, the Minister's Office indicates that it developed Bill 96 in such a way that it “does not violate the right of First Nations and Inuit to ensure the maintenance and development of their traditional languages and cultures”, while indicating that “the protection of the French language and the protection of Aboriginal languages are not opposed”.
The firm did not say whether or not it would grant an exemption to Indigenous students who want to learn their ancestral language. With regard to newcomers, the firm did not specify how it intended to accommodate people who cannot read and write or who have experienced trauma. Instead, the minister's office reiterated that the six-month margin provided by Quebec “for specific situations that would require the use of a language other than French does not represent a delay in learning French”, adding that exceptions are provided and that immigrants will be served in French. No details have been provided about the consequences on the migration process of newcomers who do not master French at the end of this six-month period.
Finally, with regard to the concerns expressed by some racialized young people about French-speaking areas, the firm simply reiterated the objective of the law without specifying how it intends to deal with the feelings of exclusion that these young people say they experience in French-speaking areas.
To go further...
For decades, French Canadians have been victims of discrimination. Until 1960, English-speaking men in Quebec earned much more and were more privileged than bilingual French-Canadian men. It was not until the Quiet Revolution in the 1960s that considerable socio-economic changes occurred and improved the lot of Quebecers.
Since the Quiet Revolution, Quebec governments have worked to protect Quebec identity, in particular by strengthening the French language. “The purpose of this bill is to affirm that the only official language of Quebec is French. He also affirms that French is the common language of the Quebec nation.” These were the first words of Bill 96. In May 2021, the Legault government introduced this bill, which aims to “reduce the decline of the French language in the province.”