François Legault decline French Quebec

Legault tells everyone who’ll listen at Francophonie Summit about “decline of French in Quebec”

The Premier also had to defend Bill 96 on several occasions due to bad press the law is receiving internationally.

Based on his own account of his trip to Djerba, Tunisia for the Francophonie Summit this week, Premier François Legault has been telling everyone who would listen about the decline of the French language in Quebec.

In their first meeting since his re-election, Legault met with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau for 20 minutes on Saturday to touch on the topic of health transfers from the federal government to the provinces, but the conversation appeared to focus on language. Discussions about the critical state of health care services will reportedly continue in early December.

“There is a decline in French, including in Montreal. We have to take action together to stop (…) the decline of French (…) so that a greater percentage of Montrealers are French-speaking.”

François Legault and Justin Trudeau

Legault also met with French President Emmanuel Macron about promoting French-speaking and making learning the French language a more attractive proposition, topics he also addressed with the Francophonie secretary-general.

“I talked about it with Emmanuel Macron of France, with Switzerland, Belgium. It is important that together, we develop content that will be attractive to young people,” Legault said.

“We talked about the decline of French in Quebec, the means to remedy it and the importance of investing in culture in French,” he added on Twitter.

François Legault and Emmanuel Macron

Legault also went on French TV station TV5 to defend Bill 96 — something he’s addressed repeatedly on this trip due to the bad press the law has received internationally, according to Legault, notably “in Toronto and New York” — and, again, speak about the decline of French in Quebec.

“We must act to reverse the decline of French in Quebec, particularly in Montreal. Bill 96 is one of the means we are giving ourselves to do this.”

Legault tells everyone who’ll listen at Francophonie Summit about “decline of French in Quebec”

For the latest in news, please visit the News section.