By The New York Times (Americas) | Created at 2024-09-29 09:07:51 | Updated at 2024-09-30 05:18:57
20 hours ago
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Quebec is working hard to fortify its official language — much to the displeasure of some who don’t speak it.
Battling what many describe as the incursion of English has become a resounding political message in the province, North America’s largest French enclave. And Quebec’s government is finding more ways to lift the supremacy of French, the province’s lingua franca.
Provincial laws mandate that English text on storefront signs be half the size of French words and that employers reveal what percentage of their staff cannot work in French. New immigrants are given a six-month grace period before French becomes the only language in which they receive government services, such as taking a driver’s test.
Now, students from outside Quebec who are enrolled at one of the province’s two main English-language public universities will have to pay higher tuition than their counterparts from Quebec.
The tuition increase is taking direct aim at what Quebec’s government claims is one of the biggest challenges in preserving the French language: university students who study at McGill University or Concordia University in Montreal but do not speak French.
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