#la francophonie raciste

[allthecanadianpolitics]

The Quebec government’s framing of a new museum to be dedicated to the history of the Québécois nation is raising questions about how history is told and who it includes, two historians and the leader of a prominent First Nations group say.

Premier François Legault was forced last week to defend comments he made in April about the opening of a new history museum, in which he suggested the province’s history began with the arrival of French explorers Jacques Cartier and Samuel de Champlain in the 16th and 17th centuries.

While he did highlight the presence of Indigenous people on Quebec’s territory in his speech, he was accused by the Assembly of First Nations Quebec-Labrador of trying to erase their history.

Steven High, a history professor at Concordia University, said the premier’s comments are a reminder that history is a political subject that raises tough questions. [...]

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Tagging: @newsfromstolenland

[hjemne]

On any given day France is only about two steps away from sliding straight back into imperialist nationalism istg

So much goes back to how protective the powers that be are over the French language, and how they constantly construct enemies who are out to destroy their language and colonial heritage.

I've been reading various decrees from my most hated and despised enemy l'Académie française and its absolutely mind-boggling how they wrote about how they could "defend" and "save" French through the standardisation of English. They say standardisation would create a new language (a global English) which is no longer a "language of culture" (and so no longer a threat to their precious french i guess???). And then they IMMEDIATELY turn around and go 'and we must return to the "purity" (yuck) of French, and so l'Académie française needs to dictate and control how French is used.' My guys... how is that not reinforcing the standardisation of language which you think will kill English??? Oh wait I forgot it's because the french language* is the "unique instrument" which can bring world peace and is the most specialest of languages. *the French of France

The future of the French language is in Africa, no matter how much the Académie wants to pretend they can maintain control over it. In the words of Ahmadou Kourouma, 'the French have their language. They have violated many peoples but they would like their language to remain pure. This is not possible.' The Académie's insistence on 'preserving the purity of French' blablabla because its oh so important that it can be used to express (Western) art & science is a deeply conservative and imperialist stance that serves to reinforce France's power over its former colonies. What good does the language serve if it won't allow its speakers to express themselves, their cultures, and their lived realities? African religions cannot be accurately expressed in 'standard/proper' French, and gender queer people (& women tbh) simply cannot exist within the French language when the Académie continues to call gender-inclusive language an "aberration" which puts French in "mortal danger" from other languages which will 'prevail' at French's expense. Which really shows that institutionalising and promoting la Francophonie isn't actually about facilitating inter-group exchange via a shared language; it's about giving France's cultural, political and economic control over former colonies the façade of being something other than neocolonialism.

And I really cannot stress enough how much of France's cultural identity is based around its imagined superiority and exceptionality (which is literally baked into French law!!). Like so much of French political rhetoric is based around this need to fight back against some existential threat posed by The Other. You've got the extreme right Reconquête party (REconquest, jfc) calling mass 'remigration' & has the backing of 7-8% of voters (and the far-right FN party getting another 30%). And then ''''''centrist''''' Macron calls for 'demographic rearming' (not via easing immigration rules, but by pushing for more French babies to be born) and talking about the need to create a 'society of vigilance' against the 'Islamist hydra' and ceding to the far right in order to pass his immigration bill (1/3 of which was deemed unconstitutional or legislative riders, including a section which would've required foreigners to live in France for 10 years (!) before becoming naturalised citizens.

This is a country where every single child is taught to internalise that 'the masculine takes precedence over the feminine' and is 'neutral'. Where a national sporting hero is loudly denounced as a reverse racist for pointing out that there is a cultural belief of white superiority in France, meanwhile 9/10 black people in France say they've faced racial discrimination.

France uses the rhetoric of 'not following republicain values' as a cudgel against those who are inherently excluded from its white, bourgeois, male & catho-laïque* conception of 'universalism'. If you don't - or can't - conform, or dare to speak out against the unyielding assimilationism, it's labelled a sign of communautarisme, which according to the right, is basically the same as being an organised, hostile, separatist faction working to destroy the pure and noble Enlightenment values and heritage of the République. There is no room for multiculturalism. In france, you have the freedom to conform to its narrow definition of universalism. And if you don't follow along, well, clearly you're too uncivilised to know how to use your freedom properly, because there's no way you'd use it to criticise France, a country which is perfect.

The rhetoric being used and the policies being implemented in France are incredibly concerning, as is the massive support for extremely far right political parties. I don't know what's going to happen in French politics in the next few years, and in all honesty, I'm scared to find out. What I do know, is that the process of fully decolonising if a long, long way from being complete, and we need to be ready to think critically about things we feel attached to or assume are politically neutral.

*laïcité = secularism. In theory it's about separation of church and state, but it relegates all 'ostentatious' symbols of religion to 'private' life, so in practice it's used as an excuse to increasingly exclude religious minorities (especially young muslim women) from public spaces. You're not allowed to wear in public schools religious head coverings (e.g. hijab, kippah) or long skirts (only if the school thinks you're wearing it for religious reasons. you can for fashion reasons. France is valiantly protecting young women from ;;;;misogynistic radical islamist extremism;;;; which tells them what to wear, by telling them what to wear, don't you see).

I'm using catho-laïque to mean that, despite the emphasis on laïcité, secularism in France is effectively secular Catholicism. Catholicism underpins French culture and is taken for granted as being the neutral default. 6/11 of their national public holidays are Catholic religious days of observance/celebration, meaning the whole country shuts down for a week each year so the Catholics can observe their religious calendar, and it's never brought up as a potential conflict with secular politics.

The French language itself also has this same Catholic cultural bias too, making it hard, for example, to discuss African religions or cultures in Académie-approved 'proper' French language. Ahmadou Kourouma (from the Ivory Coast) wrote an essay about the difficulties of expressing his reality in written French when there's no word that truly encapsulates his God, religious practices, and the oral culture of his native language malinké. He called for an open, multicultural and equal francophone world, which can only be done by accepting 'africanised' or other non-standard uses of French, but this is firmly rejected by the western arbiters of French who very much do not want to decolonise and decentralise the French language. I wonder why.

I love this quote from Kourouma because it summarises everything so succinctly: 'We cannot be totally free if we do not possess the language which allows us to express ourselves completely.' It should be fairly clear at this point that 'liberté, égalité, fraternité' all take on very specific and restricted meanings in the context of the French state, but I still think it's worth pointing out the hypocracy and neocolonial implications of the French ideals vs how they're used in practice.

I'd definitely recommend his novels, which you can find here in both English and French.

I'd also definitely recommend checking out the icon that is Lilian Thuram who has suffered more than any tumblr user at being accused of pissing on the poor by people who misread the title of his book La pensée blanche and call him an anti-white racist. He also wrote Mes étoiles noires which is also a good read.

Thuram is just such an incredibly interesting guy. He talks a lot about how he wasn't born black, but became black aged 9 when he moved to Paris from Guadeloupe (a French territory in the Carribean), and became aware that other people had assigned him a category based on his skin colour which marked him as lesser. He uses Simone de Beauvoir's framework of how she wasn't born a woman, but became one through socialisation to talk about race which is super interesting. Also, it's why he told the biggest figure in the French far-right, Jean-Marie Le Pen, "personally, I'm not black" when Le Pen was bitching about the French national football team not being white enough. King shit, even if it went over people's heads. He's so cool, go read his interviews. He is fighting an uphill battle, but oh boy is he fighting. (here's his anti-racism foundation's site in French).

You can read an incredible discussion about race, politics and football in this book (p.177-194). When I tell you that a footballer getting a red card for headbutting someone had real implications for the discussion of race & immigration in France, I'm being dead serious.

This is the sort of reaction that Thuram gets btw

"oh wouldn't Africa have been better off if it kept you [i.e. 'you should have stayed in Africa if you hate white people so much'], what a shame..."

He's literally french!! from the caribbean!! oh my fucking god how do you not see this is literally the type of racist thinking that he's talking about ahhhhhhhhgghhhgg

"he was praised in 1998 [after he won the world cup] by all of France, and no one made any reference to the colour of his skin. He's ruining this beautiful memory with his racist ideas."

OH MY GOD THIS IS SO FACTUALLY INACCURATE. i think they said this just to piss me off in particular. What do you mean that no one talked about the 1998 French team's skin colour? That's all they talked about for years. You mean to tell me that the incredibly famous slogan 'black-blanc-beur' [black-white-arab] was not about ethnicities??? And Thuram is only now bringing up the topic of race? Get so fucking forreal. Boohoo your memories of the 98 victory are being ruined by racism? You know who else's were? Thuram's.

And you know how i can be so so certain that it wasn't just leftist academics who were talking about la France black-blanc-beur? You know who cannot stop bringing up the French team's skin colour? Jean-Marie Le Pen [OG far-right racist politician]. You know who else goes on about how the media would not stop telling you about the racial diversity of the team and how everyone in France was talking about the team's skin colour? Eric fuckin Zemmour [current extreme-right political shithead]

(no translation, it's all just racist bullshit. It is funny how close he gets at times tho. 'lots of young, aspiring football players after 1998 felt like they'd experienced social exclusion, and football was an area which they felt they could thrive in and escape the misery of growing up in the banlieu.' YEAH MY DUDE. he's so close to putting the cause & effect together for why marginalised ethnicities from disadvantaged areas are overrepresented in professional football. but no, he has to go on about how these new plays weren't like Zidane (the golden boy of assimilation via football), they sucked because they rejected all authority by eating... halal....hmm....) (Zemmour also takes the time to bitch about how 1998 was also when the anglicism 'coach' entered popular use in France, because he has to really emphasise how the world cup victory was part of the 'suicide' of the French nation in any and all ways possible. It's honestly just pathetic more than anything at this point. He just cycles through the same 4 scapegoats overe and over (I can only assume it's because he's allergic to all forms of diversity) )

Like..... absolutely everyone is in agreement that the ethnic diversity of the 1998 team was a huge talking point. This is the one thing that everyone across the political spectrum can agree on. So WHY would you make it your argument that 'no one made any reference to his skin colour uwu'. The team was THE example of the successes of French integration. And yeah, it sucks to realise things weren't as good as you thought they were, but Thuram has every right to turn around and ask why the acceptance of his 'frenchness' by society was conditional on the team's success. Why whether he (& other non-white players) was 'worthy' of representing France (which he has done in more matches than all but one player ever in French history) was not just a question of football abilities, but also about whether he was 'dignified' enough to be French. And why talking out against inequality and injustice made him less deserving.

There are definitely other , smarter ways of fighting against the stupidity/foolishness of certain spectaters [referencing the fact that Thuram discussed the many many times that spectators made monkey noises at him & others during football matches]."

Ohhhhhhh my god Thuram is literally examining at the systems in society that led people to make such blatantly racist gestures. Does this guy think he should go to racist football fans one by one and tell them nicely to stop?? The description of it as 'bêtise' is also driving me up the wall because its so dismissive of how serious and horrific these overt and public displays of racial hatred are. 'J'ai fait une bêtise' is I did a whoopsie, I did a dumb thing. Also the fact it's qualified with 'certain' spectators. 'Oui okay something bad did happen, but it wasn't that many people, it wasn't that big of a deal, and you should be dealing with it in a different way because talking about structural racism makes me uncomfortable.' Killing you with my death ray. Do more introspection and less historical revisionism.

Also Thuram has literally addressed this

« J'ai l'impression que l'on parle du racisme avec superficialité. Comme si c'était un phénomène individualisé, de personnes "pas gentilles". Non, c'est une idéologie politique qui a une profondeur historique ! »

Anyway.... long long rant over. there was a documentary on netflix about french football and black blanc beur back in 2017 ish and if anyone knows how to track it down i'd love to rewatch it. Also here’s a link to some articles on the topic if you want to read some more.  

[didierleclair]

QUAND LE VERBE SE FAIT NOIR

QUAND LE VERBE SE FAIT NOIR

Être francophone de race noire, qu’est-ce que cela signifie? Comment essayer de mettre en évidence le fanion qui identifie des gens d’Afrique ou d’origine africaine qui gardent le français comme langue principale d’expression?

Le défi de base est le contentieux qui existe entre la personne de race noire et la langue française. Ce fut la langue des esclavagistes et des colonisateurs. Des philosophes du siècle des Lumières comme Voltaire se sont montrés répugnants dans leurs propos sur les Noirs. L'Essai sur les Mœurs et l'esprit des Nations, de Voltaire (1756) en est une preuve flagrante :

« Leurs yeux ronds, leur nez épaté, leurs lèvres toujours grosses, leurs oreilles différemment figurées, la laine de leur tête, la mesure même de leur intelligence, mettent entre eux et les autres espèces d'hommes des différences prodigieuses. Et ce qui démontre qu'ils ne doivent point cette différence à leur climat, c'est que des nègres et des négresses transportés dans les pays les plus froids y produisent toujours des animaux de leur espèce, et que les mulâtres ne sont qu'une race bâtarde d'un noir et d'une blanche, ou d'un blanc et d'une noire. »

Il y a de nombreuses versions expurgées de cette œuvre car Voltaire, comme a dit Victor Hugo, « Voltaire, disons-le avec joie et tristesse, c’est l’esprit français ».

Quant au colonialisme, c’est un contentieux entre les descendants des colons et les Africains mais sans le déracinement que les Antillais ont connu. Prenons André Gide et son Voyage au Congo (1927) : « Près de moi, tandis que j’écris ces lignes, un gentil petit macaque qu’on est venu m’apporter ce matin, que l’aspect de mon visage blanc terrifie. Il bondit se réfugier dans les bras de n’importe quel indigène qui passe à sa portée. »

Ce langage zoologique est tout à fait assumé par l’écrivain prix Nobel de littérature en 1947. Ajoutons un autre passage : « Les nègres nus crient, rient et se querellent en montrant des dents de cannibales. »

La littérature française est truffée de propos racistes, déshumanisants envers les personnes de race noire ; pourtant, aujourd’hui, il y a des Africains et des descendants d’Africains qui portent haut le flambeau de la francophonie.

La première raison est simple. Même si Frantz Fanon soutient que les mots venus de France désignent le Noir, donc lui enlèvent le droit de s’identifier lui-même, Aimé Césaire décide, lui, de dire : « ma négritude n’est ni une tour ni une cathédrale/elle plonge dans la chair rouge du sol/ elle plonge dans la chair ardente du ciel/elle troue l’accablement opaque de sa droite patience. »

André Breton, qui signera la préface du recueil de Césaire (Cahier d’un retour au pays natal, 1939), va avoir ces propos : « Toutes [les] ombres grimaçantes se déchiraient (...), tous [les] mensonges, toutes les dérisions tombaient en loques : ainsi la voix de l'homme n'était en rien brisée, couverte, elle se redressait ici comme l'épi même de la lumière. Aimé Césaire, c'était le nom de celui qui parlait. »

Depuis qu’Aimé Césaire, Léopold Sédar Senghor et Léon Gontran Damas décidèrent d’utiliser la langue française comme une arme contre l’oppression grâce au mouvement de la négritude, le francophone de race noire a indéniablement plongé sa plume dans la même encre d’un noir belliqueux, quelquefois fielleux mais surtout sans complexe.

Nous, francophones de race noire, nous sommes appropriés la langue dans un combat qui reste titanesque car l’ancien colon refuse de reconnaître que nous avons moderniser la parole française, nous l’avons engrossée, inoculée du venin de la vérité sur ce que nous sommes, c’est-à-dire des êtres humains à part entière.

Quand l’ancien président français, Nicolas Sarkozy, en juillet 2007, fit un discours de 50 minutes à Dakar, au Sénégal, il tint des propos mensongers sur les gens de race noire. Je cite « l'homme africain n'est pas assez entré dans l'Histoire. […] Le problème de l'Afrique, c'est qu'elle vit trop le présent dans la nostalgie du paradis perdu de l'enfance. […] Dans cet imaginaire où tout recommence toujours, il n'y a de place ni pour l'aventure humaine ni pour l'idée de progrès ».

Prenons le président Emmanuel Macron qui en juillet 2018 à L’Alliance française de Lagos au Nigéria déclara : « Quand vous êtes un pays pauvre, où vous laissez la démographie galopante, où vous avez 7, 8 enfants par femme, vous ne sortez jamais de la pauvreté. Même quand vous avez un taux de croissance de 5 à 6 % vous n'arrivez jamais à en sortir. »

Tous ces propos sur les peuples africains soulignent l’incapacité de la France et des pays dominants de langue française de reconnaître un fait indéniable : les peuples noirs sont autonomes, souverains dans l’aspect socio-culturel de leur destinée. L’augmentation de la population francophone est une menace pour la francophonie ou une bénédiction. Cela dépend de la place qu’il faudra donner aux francophones d’Afrique ou qu’ils prendront eux-mêmes. Quant à l’idée que l’Africain n’est pas assez entré dans l’histoire, c’est un déni puéril. Prenez les œuvres du sculpteur Ousmane Sow exposées dans le monde entier, les œuvres musicales du Hip Hop ; prenez Usain Bolt, le plus rapide au monde. Nous sommes tellement dans l’histoire, qu’on nous copie. Ce qui fait du francophone de race noire un élément indomptable, c’est cette modernité débridée que nous partageons avec d’autres peuples noirs. Elle inquiète des gens comme Nicolas Sarkozy ou Emmanuel Macron.

Ramenons le débat dans un contexte francophone de l’Ontario. Les francophones de race noire ou issus de la colonisation sont également dans une contribution innovante. Dans la musique, on peut citer Yao, spécialiste du slam ; il y en a d’autres dans la poésie ou de la fiction. Cela n’enlève rien aux auteurs franco-ontariens qui ont commencé dans la contre-culture et avec la musique du groupe CANO. Tout en étant des précurseurs, les Robert Dickson et Jean-Marc Dalpé n’ont pas la même palette que les francophones originaires d’ailleurs, notamment de l’Afrique. Les œuvres des francophones de race noire, même ancrées en Ontario, utilisent un matériau se souvenant des coups de fouet de l’esclavagiste ou de la cravache du colon en Afrique. Ce souvenir est souvent inconscient et il a hérité du langage révolutionnaire de Césaire, Senghor et L.-G. Damas. Ce matériau crée des œuvres comme Bangkok Blues d’Hédi Bouraoui d’origine tunisienne.

Il y a un moyen d’illustrer la différence entre les francophones d’origine noire et les auteurs franco-ontariens d’origine québécoise. Il suffit de mentionner le poète franco-ontarien Patrice Desbiens qui vit au Québec depuis des années. Il a été récupéré volontairement par les intellectuels québécois au point où on commence à oublier qu’il est originaire de l’Ontario. Ses plus beaux textes ont été écrits face à l’oppression anglophone ou au malaise de sa propre identité (L’homme invisible/The invisible man, 1981).

Ce genre de phénomène ne peut jamais arriver à un auteur francophone de race noire au Canada. Il y a toujours, dans cette culture noire, un contentieux tranchant et contemporain. S’il n’est pas question du ton paternaliste des politiciens français (ou canadiens) qui se font l’écho de l’élite dominante dans la francophonie, il y a les nouvelles plaies urbaines comme la violence policière et la discrimination à l’emploi. Ces plaies non cicatrisées façonnent la plume des auteurs noirs et forgent un langage sans compromis. Il n’y a pas de possibilité de repli vers le Québec : nous avons le dos au mur. L’auteur francophone de race noire ressemble à cet homme noir secouant un chiffon rouge dans le tableau de Théodore Géricault, Le radeau de la Méduse (1818-1819). Il est le plus haut perché, aidé par d’autres, certes, mais le plus haut quand même car son désespoir est l’accumulation de multiples injustices et ce naufrage décrit par Géricault est la goutte qui fait déborder le vase.

Didier Leclair, écrivain

[jorinde-spitri-blog]

Tintin au Congo

Tintin's adventures respond to the racist imagery of foreign lands, especially Africa, that existed in Europe, Tintin in the Congo still shows the country through the eyes of the white Belgian that goes and saves the poor Congolese

it’s full of racist and sexist stereotypes, depicting Africans as poor and uneducated

It was the second book that belgian author Hergé draw

Original comic in black and white from 1931 was reprinted in color in 1947 -> some sections and text bubbles were changed by Hergé to make it ‘less racist’

For example: In the original comic from 1931 Tintin was shown teaching a group of half-naked children about their motherland: Belgium. The updated version saw the subject changed to maths.

Discussion about racism:

2007 in Belgium a congolese student and Black initiatives tried and failed to have the book banned on the grounds of racism -> https://www.france24.com/en/20121206-tintin-congo-not-racist-belgian-court-rules Alain Amici, lawyer for the plaintiffs, told the court in 2011: “The negative stereotypes portrayed in this book are still read by a significant number of children. They have an impact on their behaviour.”Not so, said Brussels judges, for whom “Tintin in the Congo” is full of “gentle and candid humour”

British bookshops have been obliged to sell the comic with a warning after the Commission for Racial Equality categorised its content as offensiveIn the Brooklyn Public Library the book is available only by appointment

Reception in Congo:

Tintin statues are part of Congo’s roaring trade in the comic’s memorabilia

Auguy Kakese, an kinshasa artisan who specialises in Tintin statuettes, acknowledges that it was Europeans who first suggested he carve the figures and most of his clients remain westerners. According to him: « au moins 75 % » des Congolais ont lu Tintin au CongoTourists can find stalls and street vendors across Kinshasa selling the figures, and can even buy personalised paintings of the book’s front cover, with their names expertly added by the artist.

Famous café in Kinshasa: “Chez Tintin”

Même s’il ne faut pas oublier, donc, que c’est « le Congo des colons » que dessine Hergé, Jean-Didier Ogobani, journaliste à Radio Okapi, la première radio en RDC, souligne l’intégration de la « culture Tintin » dans l’inconscient congolais. « Ici, on peut dire que “tu es Tintin” comme vous dites “tu fais le guignol” en France, explique-t-il. C’est pour dire que quelqu’un a de l’humour, qu’il est marrant. »(https://www.lemonde.fr/afrique/article/2015/09/04/au-congo-tintin-est-une-star_4746163_3212.html)

Online Sources:https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-congo-democratic-tintin/congo-questions-tintins-cultural-status-ahead-of-francophonie-idUKBRE88J0JI20120920https://www.lemonde.fr/afrique/article/2015/09/04/au-congo-tintin-est-une-star_4746163_3212.html

Literatur:L’Histoire de la bande dessinée congolaise (Paris, L’Harmattan, 2010, 294 pages)http://www.editions-harmattan.fr/index.asp?navig=catalogue&obj=livre&no=31731

[allthecanadianpolitics]

Quebecers could soon see more homegrown content on streaming services like Netflix and Disney+.

The provincial government announced that it plans to introduce a new bill within the next year to force online streaming giants to add more made-in-Quebec media on their platforms. It was one of nine measures unveiled on Sunday under the province's plan to spend $603 million over five years(opens in a new tab) to protect the French language in Quebec.

Culture Minister Mathieu Lacombe did not provide specifics of what would be inside the bill. [...]

The new funding will be aimed at nine priorities outlined by the government to boost the status of French. More than half of the money — $320 million — will be earmarked for ensuring temporary international workers speak and learn French. After immigration, culture is poised to get the second-largest chunk of the funding, at $187.3 million. [...]

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Tagging: @newsfromstolenland, @vague-humanoid

[allthecanadianpolitics]

The Quebec government has officially revealed how much out-of-province students will have to pay if they want to study in the province. It also announced that non-Quebec students will be required to learn French in order to graduate.  In a letter sent to the rectors of Quebec's three English-language universities, McGill, Concordia and Bishop's, Quebec Higher Education Minister Pascale Déry confirmed that tuition fees for students from other Canadian provinces will go up 30 per cent from $9,000 to a minimum of $12,000 per year. The original proposal was an increase to $17,000.

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[allthecanadianpolitics]

Nouvelle Alliance is a separatist organization that has been active for over a year and a half. While the group claims it is neither left-wing nor right-wing, it proudly and openly presents itself as promoting an identitarian form of nationalism. Is this organization a “big tent” that could unite the separatist movement or a vehicle of the radical right seeking to “fool the unwary?” In March 2022, a group of 20 young people — primarily men — held their first official meeting in Montréal. Since then, the group known as Nouvelle Alliance (NA) has founded local chapters in Sherbrooke and Québec City. Today, its membership has grown to more than 50.

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[allthecanadianpolitics]

Two English universities in Montreal are launching separate lawsuits against the Quebec government over tuition hikes for out-of-province students.  "I am really unhappy that we have come to this point. This is really the last resort for us,"  said Graham Carr, president and vice-chancellor of Concordia University. "We are taking this action to defend our institution and we are taking this action to uphold the values that are integral to who we are as Concordia." McGill University and Concordia are both taking legal action as the two schools have seen a significant drop in applicants. Reducing the number of students coming from the rest of Canada and abroad also limits diversity, said Carr, which is something Concordia values. 

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[allthecanadianpolitics]

The Quebec Liberal Party (QLP) lashed out on Saturday at the CAQ government's decision to substantially increase tuition fees for new non-Quebec students enrolling in English-language universities.

According to interim Liberal leader Marc Tanguay, François Legault is a disguised PQer who likes to divide and who has built his political career by dividing Quebecers.

He pointed out that Legault was a Parti Québécois (PQ) MNA and minister from 1998 to 2009.

In a press scrum at the QLP general council on Saturday morning, Tanguay added that we will not advance the French language in Quebec by beating the heads of students who come here to study in English.

The QLP's elected representatives and party members all denounced the CAQ government's decision. [...]

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Tagging: @politicsofcanada

[allthecanadianpolitics]

Applications for Concordia and McGill universities are down as Quebec plans to push ahead with the tuition hikes for English universities. Fewer students from out of the province are applying compared to last year, and on Wednesday, Montreal Mayor Valérie Plante questioned the reasoning behind the province's controversial plans.  At McGill, applications for out-of-province students are down 22 per cent, and down 7 per cent for international students. Meanwhile, at Concordia, applications for Quebec students are down 5 per cent. It's much higher for out-of-province student, at 27 per cent. International student applications are down 10 per cent.

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[allthecanadianpolitics]

A Quebec judge is questioning amendments to the province's French language charter, warning of potential delays in an upcoming English trial.

In a 17-page ruling, Quebec Court Judge Dennis Galiatsatos raises concerns over an amendment to Bill 101 requiring the immediate and simultaneous filing of French translation at the time a criminal court ruling comes down.

The judge is presiding over a criminal trial to be held in English starting two days after the law takes effect, June 1.

Galiatsatos writes that the constitutionality of the new rule needs to be debated in the context of his case.

The judge says families will all have to wait several additional weeks or months to receive the final judgment since it would have to be translated, reviewed, corrected and approved. [...]

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[allthecanadianpolitics]

Constitutional Rights Lawyer Julius Grey believes anglophone universities, and the province’s English-speaking community as a whole, have grounds for legal action against the CAQ government. “Its essence is to reduce the role of the English language and therefore it constitutes discrimination as to language,” Grey said of the recent tuition change. On Thursday, Quebec Higher Education Minister Pascale Déry confirmed she’d be moving forward with planned tuition hikes for out-of-province students.

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[allthecanadianpolitics]

McGill University was set to invest $50 million to teach students, faculty and staff French to "integrate more fully into Quebec society," but says it is pausing the program's announcement, after the provincial government said it would double tuition for out-of-province students. 

Late last week, Quebec's minister of higher education, Pascale Déry, said new, out-of-province Canadian students will see tuition fees double next year — for most, that would mean their tuition would rise from about $9,000 to more than $17,000. 

International student tuition will also rise to a minimum of $20,000 per year. Déry framed the increase, the proceeds of which will go into government coffers, as a way to balance the funding of English and French universities in the province. 

But Quebec's three English universities, McGill, Bishop's and Concordia have said the plan would have devastating financial consequences for them. 

Nearly a third of the students who attend Bishop's are from outside the province, the university's principal and vice-chancellor, Sébastien Lebel-Grenier, said earlier this week. [...]

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[allthecanadianpolitics]

Potentially thousands of students from Montreal's two English universities are expected to skip class and march through the streets on Oct. 30 to denounce the Quebec government's plan to hike tuition for out-of-province students.

The one-day strike action, dubbed the "blue fall protest," will see students march from Dorchester Square in downtown Montreal at 1 p.m. to McGill University's Roddick Gates.

McGill student Alex O'Neill told CTV News he is organizing the student-led movement alongside Noah Sparrow, a student at Concordia University. The pair is spreading the word on social media(opens in a new tab) and has reached out to the student unions at both universities to get their support, as well as the Université de Montréal and Université du Québec à Montréal.

Earlier this month, the higher education minister, Pascale Déry, announced Quebec would nearly double the tuition fee for Canadian out-of-province students(opens in a new tab) from roughly $9,000 to $17,000 beginning next fall. Under the measure, the provincial government would also collect the first $20,000 from international students and reinvest that money in the French university system. [...]

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Tagging: @politicsofcanada, @vague-humanoid

[allthecanadianpolitics]

Another convoy rally against Quebec's controversial language law rolled through southwest Montreal Saturday afternoon, with demonstrators calling on the province to hit the brakes on Bill 96.

A group of about 50 drove through boroughs like LaSalle, Verdun, and Lachine to express their frustration with Bill 96, which seeks to promote the use of the French language in Quebec and affirm that French is the common language of the province. 

"It's detrimental to the people, and that's not what a government is supposed to do. It's supposed to protect everybody in Quebec," said Marc Perez with the Task Force on Linguistic Policy.

The Task Force, along with the group Bridging Ethnic Communities, organized the demonstrations.

Some at the protest said they've had difficulty receiving services in English, arguing the law has created a hostile attitude towards anglophones. [...]

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[allthecanadianpolitics]

As the Quebec Liberal Party tries to rebound from a devastating blow in the last two provincial elections, the official opposition is proposing the rights of the English-speaking community be enshrined in a new Quebec constitution.

The proposal is from a report by a committee that studied the relaunch of the party after speaking with Liberal party members on its path forward.

Specifically, the committee, co-chaired by Liberal MNA Madwa-Nika Cadet, called for the first-ever Quebec constitution to "enshrine the rights of English-speaking Quebecers, guaranteeing their existing rights to English-language services and control of their educational and health institutions."

"It would provide additional guarantees that the rights and freedoms of cultural and linguistic minorities would be respected by the Quebec government," according to the document, which was obtained by CTV News Wednesday evening.

The Liberals are set to unveil the party's new vision at a press conference in Montreal on Thursday. [...]

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Tagging: @politicsofcanada