For Quebec, a French Woman May Not Be French Enough | Hacker News Reader

For Quebec, a French Woman May Not Be French Enough

nytimes.com

42 pointsmykowebhn81 comments

The decision has already been overturned: https://toronto.citynews.ca/2019/11/09/quebec-overturns-deci...

Mistakes like this happen all the time. What's truly telling is how fast it was reversed.

One could argue its only because it got national coverage but I don't think we know for sure.

Ultimately I don't think it matters unless we start seeing a recurring pattern.

There already is a recurring pattern. Not exactly like this situation, but a pattern of discriminating against anything that is not French. It's getting completely out of hands. Soon, "non historic anglos" (ie immigrants) won't be allowed to get their hydro bill, correspondence from the government or any service in English.

We moved out of Quebec mostly for the politics 5 years ago and I'm so glad I did. We're never going back.

I think it's perfectly normal for people in a small enclave nestled in the heart of the giant Anglo-saxon hegemon to feel insecure about the long-term survival of their unique language and culture and want to take extra steps to preserve it. I'm completely sympathetic with them refusing to provide services in a foreign language when that language is a serious threat to their existence as a cultural group.

Look what happened to French in Louisiana, or Irish in Ireland, or Native American languages across the continent. Quebecers don't want that to happen to them, and I can't blame them.

By the way, always remember that Quebecers never chose to become part of Canada or any English-speaking society; they were conquered by military force.

Most places were conquered by military force, multiple times for that matter, that's not what makes Quebec unique or a terribly interesting piece of history.

In fact, as places that explicitly chose to be part of a country, Quebec ranks pretty highly, since they've had multiple referendum's about leaving Canada.

What was the referendum result though? 49.4% for statu quo vs. 50.6% for independence? That's not really what I'd call a plebiscite for being part of Canada.

Something like that... and since the referendums happened when Quebec was most inclined to separate (in recent memory) that's really a good sign that > 50% of Quebec would prefer not to.

Are you really thinking that half the province against each other is a good sign?

Please.

Like I said, support for that movement is way less than half now, the first result I found from a quick search [0] suggests 18% as of 2015.

[0] https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/quebec-angus-reid-ca...

I think a majority vote choosing to stay is a hell of a lot better than "forced to stay by the military"... which is what you'd get from the post I originally replied to. And it's not "against eachother" so much as "politely thinking that we'd be better of splitting the country in two" for most of them.

It's much less than half now, that was at the ultimate peak - was the point he was making.

I misread the contextual OP, he wasn't supporting the francophones.

And proceeded to get told by the english landowners to "Speak White" when we'd speak our native french tongue.

We're just about as white as they come. "Speak White" means "Speak the english of your captors."

There is an actual poem from about the time of the Quiet Revolution named "Speak White" which would explain this really well, here's (ironically) an English translation of it :

https://www.everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=738881

In Quebec City they are loudly proud of how many Anglos they have driven away. They pretty much purged the city of anything non-French in the two last decades and are displaying it as a success story.

For me, displacing large communities based on their mother tongue is nothing to be proud of. Be it either way.

Citation needed? I'll concede that I haven't lived there so I could be wrong, but I've been to Quebec city twice, including once with people who spoke no French at all, and never felt any hostility. Again, I'm not disputing that it could be different for the local Anglo minority, but I'd need to see some sources before I believe that you're not exaggerating.

There’s a difference between a tourist and a local. As a tourist you bring dollars. But try getting any government service in English and you’ll get eye rolls and rude behaviour. Even cops in Montreal will not speak English generally.

How many governments around the world provide services in a foreign language?

That's just a plain lie.

Sure, as for literally any other subject, you may find people with extreme views on the topic, but that's what they are: extreme. That doesn't make it the general consensus.

Please stop spreading lies like this.

It's not a lie at all.

Yes it is. The point is _not_ about driving Anglos (or whatever culture) away, but about being proud of being able to communicate in French. As a matter of fact, exactly the same thing English speakers ask to literally the rest of the world.

Edit: and, of course, this does not apply to tourists or visitors. This point is about people who want to live in Quebec.

It was an exhibition on the top floor of the tallest building in the city. It was comparing Montreal to Quebec City trying to draw more people and business to Quebec City. One of the "selling" points was a statistic saying that:

1. Montreal has about 50/50 French/English split whereas in Quebec City it's something like 98/2 French/English. Yes, that was presented as an advantage.

2. There was a graph showing how the city is becoming more and more French-speaking over time. Again, proudly presenting that fact as a selling point.

I never said they are openly hostile but by hindering any English business and opressive language laws they drove whole communities of English speakers away. That's a fact.

> They were conquered by military force.

This will no doubt come across poorly, but it's important to keep in mind when it happened. Quebec was allowed to keep their language, despite being conquered.

The current government is downright hostile towards Anglophones and immigrants.

Quebecers never chose to become part of Canada or any English-speaking society; they were conquered by military force.

You could say the same thing for the indigenous people of Quebec. Why is there no protection for their languages? For example, the Malecite–Passamaquoddy language may have as few as 600 native speakers remaining [1]. This is a much more urgent situation than French, which has 76.8 million native speakers worldwide.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malecite-Passamaquoddy_languag...

Yes you could say the same thing about them, and I would be completely sympathetic to indigenous people in Quebec promoting the use of their own languages in their own territories, and discouraging the use of French. Unfortunately some of the groups have so few members (like the 600 you point out) that it would be difficult for them to be viable as a modern civilization using only their native language, but if they are somehow able to do so, that's great and I hope they succeed.

I explicitly mentioned in my comment that the destruction of indigenous cultures throughout the Americas was a regrettable thing, which is why Quebecers would like to avoid it happening to themselves.

I'm not blindly arguing here that French is the greatest language ever and nationalist Quebecers are correct on all political matters. I think French people were colonialists and their treatment of Native Americans in Quebec was terrible. But that doesn't change that now, however unsavory the circumstances of its birth, the Quebec culture doesn't deserve to be wiped out.

I don’t think we even need to entertain discussion of the idea that any culture should be wiped out. That’s a non-starter. The distinction here is one of political power.

Francophone Quebecers have enough political power to enforce and expand their language and culture laws in order to “defend” their culture. But never lose sight of the fact that this comes at the expense of more than just anglophone residents. This affects all other cultures within Quebec. And that’s why you see it take the form of more than just language, it includes attacks on minority religious symbols and clothing as well.

I'm sorry to hear you've been driven out by the politics (god knows after 26 years I'm quite exhausted as well). I don't know your story, and you might have been on a sharper end of the stick policy-wise than myself, but I do feel the need to make provincial politics the last thing to consider when contemplating a move if I am able to. I fear that having anglophones flee the province because of these policies are just add fuel to the injustice. I rather be a vocal and present reminder to my neighbors and coworkers that Quebec is made-up of more than the ruling class.

The attitude you display in this post suggests that it's a good thing for everyone that you moved. Quebecers are actually very tolerant of Anglophones and while it is difficult to adapt to using a new language it is not impossible and is actually fun in many ways.

French survives in a sea of anglophone hegemony only because of such language laws.

>>Quebecers are actually very tolerant of Anglophones

I can vouch for that - if you make any attempt at all to speak the most basic French they love you for making the attempt.

Try wearing a turban.

Well, it depends. If you want a dispense to wear a hard hat of a construction site because of your turban then yes, this may come as a problem: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/quebec-court-of-appe...

If you were in Québec you couldn't miss seeing all the anti-Singh (NDP leader who happens to be Sikh) comments, many referring to his turban.

(It is now illegal in QC to be a public servant and wear e.g. a turban, yarmulke, crucifix, etc. Public buildings are still adorned with crucifexes and saint's names for reasons of 'cultural respect'.)

This is the distillation of the delusional Québec separatist view.

It kills innovation and economic development, and leads to the rampant religious discrimination and xenophobia now seen in the province.

I mean you wouldn't have this reaction if you moved to France.

Quebec's official language is French - regardless of its status within the rest of Canada. Why would you move it immigrate to Quebec if you are not willing to learn French?

If you like Canada but not French, go to Vancouver or Toronto

Anglophones built Quebec alongside Francophones.

We've as much right to this province as francophones.

Also, here's a hot-tip: telling people they don't belong somewhere and that they should go live elsewhere is usually a really great heuristic of when you're extremely wrong.

Well, the post you're replying to puts things in a way I'm not comfortable with. But inside it is something very correct:

French is the official language of Québec. If you want to live there and not do business with people in French, that is your problem.

I wouldn't say you don't belong there. By all means belong there. But the official language is French today, regardless of who built the province. If you want the province's official languages to be English and French, well, democracy is there to make that possible, even if it's unlikely at the moment.

You have a right to live in Québec. But for the moment, not a right to demand that businesses or government agencies communicate with you in English.

---

As for me, I lve in Ontario. And FWIW, I believe very deeply that our society should beend over backwards to do business with people in a language they understand. So if someone is in trouble with the law, I am happy to have my tax dollars go to providing them with a translator. I think government web sites should have all sorts of translations available. I believe in the melting pot.

But...

All I can do is advocate for it and vote for it. If a different province votes for something else... I respect that.

I feel that official languages is in a very different bucket than laws about what people can wear in public.

As someone living in EU, there is a practical limit to this. Languages NEEDS should be satisfied: For example, a translator should be provided to someone not speaking common languages (for the area) trying to get medical care.

But language WANTS might not be economically viable. For example in Scandinavia, Sami people (estimated population <100k) demanded all government interaction (documents, services, etc) to be translated in all their dialects (there are 11+ dialects, which are different in writing). Amount of work to be done to support that request would be astonishing.

Ironically the same true for French. There are 20+ very different dialects, is Quebec ready to work in all of them on government level? Or are we talking about le français standard?

So there is some practical limits to this, and so far EU is handling it's ok-ish. EU-wide systems are available in all official languages of all members, and minority languages are embraced when practical.

Where are you coming up with 20 different dialects of French? Are you talking about the various French-based creole languages, which are totally separate languages (e.g., someone from France has essentially no hope of understanding a native Hatian Creole speaker). If that's what you mean it's a bit silly to call them "dialects" instead of "separate languages" because Haitian Creole and French are as different as English and French.

Or are you talking about the various regional languages/dialects/"patois" in France? If so, sure, many could be called "dialects of French" but they aren't spoken at all outside of France so it isn't really relevant to Quebec.

I'm referring to a fact that before economical needs created unified time / measurement system / language, each region had their own language-dialect. For example Gallo-Romance languages and so on [0].

- [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_France

Yes, you're right. And those dialects still exist; I know people (born before WWII in semi-rural areas) whose first language was something so different from the standard that it'd have been very difficult for someone from Paris to understand.

But as far as I know, none of them are spoken in Quebec...

What's funny that you think that about me is that I'm an anglophone that absolutely HATED my mandatory French classes in Vancouver high school.

I also remember being a kid being ANGRY at Quebec for daring to want to separate, and thought we should just "kick them out, if they want their own country so badly."

I've come to appreciate Quebec as a unique and meaningfully distinct part of Canada. I do not think it weakens my Canadian identity to have one part of the country have a fiercely proud and unique perspective on feeling equally Quebecois and Canadian at the same time (or some balance of the two). Just because I don't have a similar sense of identity about my province, doesn't mean others can't.

I do think it's a bit unfair that the Federal Government has to treat English and French equally while Quebec itself does not, however I've also learned ago that fair actions and intentions do not always lead to fair outcomes. If Quebec did not fiercely fight to protect it's French-speaking status, it would have died a long time ago and got swallowed up from both sides by the English side of Canada. And that would have been a shame.

Finally, I'm an immigrant. And as such, I am deeply welcoming to other immigrants to Canada. But I also am conscious of the fact that refugees notwithstanding, immigrants have a choice in which part of the country they immigrate to. And given that, I don't think that it's unreasonable to build expectations for them that if they move to Quebec they will need to study and master French if they want to integrate. This should not be any more of a shock or burden than expecting Belgian immigrants to understand that there is a French half and a Flemish/Dutch half, and they are quite different.

Saying anglophones built Quebec alongside the francophones sounds a bit like French people saying they built Algeria or Vietnam as a justification for not granting it independence.

The reality is that the anglophones built Quebec because they were colonizing it, and without them the francophones would have "built Quebec" just as well.

The French started earnestly colonizing Quebec less than 100 years before the British conquest so that analogy does not seem apt at all...

What matters is that the inhabitants when Britain invaded were almost all French, and French speaking. It doesn't matter much if their parents had been there for a long time already or not, it was their home and they had founded it.

Both countries invaded, both English and French speaking people built it into what it is today. Arguing about which imperialist culture was there first (especially when the difference is so small historically) to justify attempts to exclude one of those cultures is VERY different than arguing that imperialized regions have a right to independence. There is a vast difference between spreading discrimination/hate and advocating self-determination.

In general, I am in favor of the rights of regions to self determination as it is generally better when people are ruled by a government they consent to.

I support the right of Hong Kong, Catalonia, Quebec, Scottland and others to succeed if the majority of their inhabitants have a strong and consistent desire to leave.

I do not support discriminatory policies or attitudes that are intended to drive certain groups of people away.

Exactly. Ce n'est pas facile à apprendre mais c'est possible.

Indeed let's hope it was basically a mistake; right now I have a few French (from France) friends doing phds at the same university, and I'm pretty sure that they will have English chapters in their thesis (research paper insertion).

The student in the article was warned years ago her thesis wouldn't waive her requirement to pass a standardized test.

All they have to do is add either a test or transcripts for 3 years of high school in French. Over time I've known many folks who obtained permanent residency through the exact same program (some of them after completing PhD almost exclusively in English). All they had to do was a test.

Thanks for the info I’ll make sure my friends are aware of this!

Do they comment on Québécois French? I hear it is closer to 19th century French than modern France.

That's a bit of a myth. The dialects have been evolving separately since that time; you can't say either is closer to the branch point than the other.

The reason French people believe this is because yes, there is some old vocabulary like souliers retained in Quebec, but on the other hand there are also some features that they've lost over time that are retained in France, like using si instead of oui to contradict a negative.

Sure they do, but usually it is only a few weeks of adaptation. The differences are well documented, look them up! It's still the same language.

I must note that she did end up sending the documents the government asked her back in 2018.

They merely reopened the case and saw that there were no missing documents. She could have gotten the same result by re-submitting the application instead of going to the media.

This whole story sounds more like some politicians are trying to get a spin out of it.

It sure is a recurring pattern! Has been for decades.

I find this extremely embarrassing. I'm all for the protection of French in Quebec; but stupid decisions like this makes us look bad internationally and make no sense at all. I went to Laval University too, and guess what: my whole thesis, not just one chapter, was in English. Yet, I didn't speak English until I was 18. Am I not French enough for Quebec?

I hope the employee who made this call will get in trouble. English is the language of science at the international level; mandating theses to be written in French (universities don't actually mandate this, but immigrants could now be scared to write it in English) will limit the reach of Quebec's science.

I don't support the original decision either, but the blame does not belong on the immigration officer for following an unreasonably strictly worded rule requiring studies to be "entirely" in French.

Yes, most officers don't read this particular rule literally, but immigration rules in general do and should apply literally instead of assuming that officers will always violate what the rule says in favor of contradictory judgment calls.

The fix should include replacing "entirely" with whatever they actually mean in the rules for the program. Most similar eligibility criteria in other contexts use phrases like "main language of instruction", some variation of which would work fine.

The funny thing for me in all this is that I'm an immigrant from the US, a native English speaker whose education was 100% English (including my PhD earned at a Canadian university). And yet, I was required to take English language tests in order to get permanent residence.

"I hope the employee who made this call will get in trouble"

Government employees could get in trouble for many reasons. F..ing up living person's lives with moronic decisions is not the one though. Look for example at "Windrush scandal" in UK. The action of the government in my eyes are pure human rights crimes. Good luck finding any person from a government held responsible (never mind put in jail where they belong).

What's embarrassing is the political spin CBC (and the NYT) gave to that story and the multiple omissions.

All this girl had to do is pass a standardized test and add it to her application. She was warned when she started her PhD program years ago.

Quebec language rules and the minions that enforce them can be quite pathetic. Just a couple of months ago, the debate be was about the right of shop-keepers being able to greet their customers in both English and French, or only in French. Totally ridiculous.

I am also a native French speaker from Europe, and left Montreal because of the backward mentality. I totally respect Quebec’s need to protect their heritage, but you can’t force it down people’s throats. It is counter-productive. It wouldn’t be so funny, if Quebec French wasn’t so hilarious to listen to... they took perfectly good French and turned it into something that is often unrecognizable.

Why did the language laws make you leave Montreal? It's an island of bilingualism and many people here get by with no French. Unless you own a business or are dealing with an immigration issue, this is the one place in Quebec where the language laws have the least effect.

And I respectfully disagree that the French here is "hilarious to listen to", and I am not Quebecois.

Why would you get to decide which French is the good French? Formal register Quebec French is totally fine. Of course, on the street you can hear pretty deformed French, but guess what: in France too. That's just how language registers work.

I’m actually from Belgium, which is in a very similar situation as Quebec: (a) heavy accent which the French love to make fun of and (b) where language wars have been raging forever and taken to ridiculous levels. This mentality of wanting to keep a culture ‘pure’ by trying to control how and where language is used, is a losing battle. Some Quebecers, just like purist francophone Belgians have taken this language obsession to irrational levels, and it has knock-on effects in other aspects of daily-life. I wish Quebecers would just lighten-up about it..

> they took perfectly good French and turned it into something that is often unrecognizable.

As I understand it, you’ve got that switched. International French, the French of metropolitan France, is the one that had changed dramatically.

You are correct - I was making light of this overly serious subject

> they took perfectly good French and turned it into something that is often unrecognizable.

This kind of talk, is one of the reasons French are hated in Quebec.

Nearly half of a population of Riga has Russian as their native language. And yet it’s forbidden to greet customers in Russian for any shopkeeper in Riga.

That’s quite sad..

Maybe you won't have a good time somewhere if you find the local language hilarious to listen to, unrecognizable or no-good.

Just my 2 cents, and wishing you the best wherever you are now

I am French, in love with my language which I find to be the most beautiful in the whole universe.

I wrote my PhD thesis entirely in English because this is THE language we communicate in internationally. Sure I world prefer it to be French but it is not.

People who do not see that are still fighting for everything to be in French, in French companies working internationally. The idea is that we are in France and French should not be forced to speak another language in their own country. Yet they choose to work in an international company.

I like the rational approach in Nordic countries who teach English early (we do as well) and do not believe that striking will miraculously make the whole world pamper us.

As a French (from Paris ) I have hard time understanding there French and I rather understand when they speak English , but I don’t ask them to switch to English because I know that would drive them mad if I do

Throwaway; Response posted in case someone Google this and find this thread (Happy to see this is off the front page as this type of content doesn't belong on HN).

What's interesting with this story is to see the different media coverage it received in French and English media. The French ones gave a little more context into why her application was initially denied. Basically she didn't fill the application properly.

I've known multiple people who used the exact same program as her to immigrate. There is no language requirement for courses or thesis. However, having followed all courses in French and written a full thesis in French removes the requirement to pass a standardized French test (think TOEFL). According to the CBC article in French[1] she was warned when she started writing it that unless she translated the chapters written in English she would potentially have to pass the Standardized French test as it wouldn't be adequate to waive the requirement for a test. She ignored this warning and decided to submit her application anyways.

Later, as warned by the university officials, she received a request for evidence. She either had to pass a Standardized test OR demonstrate three years of high school level education in French (from the folks that I know who went through this, a simple copy of a French high school transcript is good enough).

She had two months to give a response but apparently waited 4 months (it's not completely obvious from the article and completely omitted from the English CBC news one [2]) to respond.

The ultimate reason why she was denied is never explicitly stated. It seems that she switched jobs while her application was pending and became a freelance illustrator. The immigration program she applied for specifically prohibits self-employment. Either that or she sent the required evidence too late and they closed her file.

tl;dr : Her paperwork was incomplete. She was warned several times and ignored a request for evidence for several months & switched to a job specifically not covered by the immigration program she was applying to.

Case closed. [1] https://ici.radio-canada.ca/nouvelle/1378665/immigration-que... [2] https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/french-thesis-immigr...

I wonder if anyone had a similar experience with English proficiency test

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