This article is taken from the special issue of Le Figaro “D’Est en Ouest – Vivre au Canada”, available on the Figaro Store.
In 1635, when the French explorer Samuel de Champlain breathed his last in the city of Quebec, which he had founded in 1608, it had only 150 inhabitants. But when the territory of New France was ceded to England two centuries later, in 1763, the French language was already well established there and did not disappear. At the same time, in Nova Scotia, another French colony was founded in 1605 – Acadia – and ceded to the English in 1713. It is from these two colonies that the presence of French in today’s Canada stems. , in Quebec, but not only. Admittedly, Quebec is today the only unilingual French-speaking Canadian province, but all the other Canadian provinces have French-speaking communities, more or less significant.
Starting with the territories of the former Acadia: New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, Prince Edward Island where more than 300,000 French-speaking Canadians who claim to be Acadians and Acadians live. Territories where the French-speaking culture is different from that of Quebec, and which have reputable universities to study in French: Sainte-Anne in Nova Scotia, Moncton in New Brunswick. Just after Quebec, New Brunswick (the only officially bilingual Canadian province) has 31.8% according to Statistics Canada figures in 2016. The three territories of Yukon, Nunavut, and the Northwest are also bilingual. The other provinces all have French-speaking communities, in varying proportions, which does not prevent these communities from being very attached to French and from defending it. It is in Ontario, for example, that we find the largest French-English bilingual university in the world: the University of Ottawa, 42,000 students. Still in Ontario, but in Toronto, the University of French Ontario, opened in 2018, owes its birth to the desire of its creators to offer an exclusively French-language university education in the heart of Canada’s economic capital.
The fact remains that despite these numerous efforts, French is on the decline in Canada, according to the 2021 census figures. If more and more Canadians have French as their first language, the proportion of Francophones is decreasing in the country. Indeed, the number of French speakers increased by 1.6% between 2016 and 2018, to reach 7.8 million, but the Canadian population has, at the same time, increased by 5.2%. Hence the decline of French: while the language of Molière was the first language spoken by 22.2% of Canadians in 2016, they are only 21.4% in 2021 (and 18% bilingual). A downward trend has continued in Canada since 1971.
In Quebec too, French is losing market share, going from 79% of the inhabitants who use it daily as their main language, to 77.5%. This led the Federal Minister for Official Languages of Canada, Ginette Petitpas, to say last August that “French is threatened in Canada, including in Quebec”. But the counterattack is getting organized: in Quebec, a law adopted in 2022 restricts the use of English in government services, companies with more than 25 employees, and public services. Similarly, the Canadian government unveiled an action plan at the end of April to promote the official languages, and mainly French. Finally, a set of measures should make it possible to encourage the reception of French-speaking migrants, particularly in trades in short supply, such as education and health.
