“What made me become a separatist 60 years ago was the pride of being able to dream that one day we would have a country that would be the representative of the French language in North America. That’s what ruled us when we were young. »
That’s what Michel Tremblay told me the other day on QUB Radio.
“I was told so much when I was young: “I don’t speak French”, I don’t want to hear it again at 75. »
THE LANGUAGE OF TREMBLAY
I was interviewing Michel Tremblay about his play Dear Chekhovpresented at the TNM until May 28, in which a 75-year-old playwright wonders if he is still relevant.
As the play is directed by Serge Denoncourt, I asked Michel Tremblay what he thought of the latter’s ptage de coach, which was not served in French in a Tim Hortons on Sainte-Catherine Street. .
“It made me think of my own youth when I was 16-17 years old, I often talked about it in my books. When we went to the department stores in the west of Montreal, the little Quebec girls who worked there as sales assistants had to speak English to us. And we think we got rid of that, we think it’s over. There, all of a sudden, it comes back, they do it without fear and without reproach, as if they were pounding Bill 101. It’s quite terrible. This is proof that we must continue to fight… if we want to remain Francophones. »
Because Michel Tremblay is the author of sisters-in-lawofAlbertine in five stages, from To you, forever, your Marie-Lou, we no longer speak of the “language of Molière” in Quebec, we say “the language of Tremblay”. Will Michel’s cry from the heart be heard by the younger generation?
“When we say that the French language is in danger, it’s not a figure of speech,” Michel Tremblay told me in an interview. If we’re no longer interested, well, let’s let things go, and French is going to die little by little. But if it’s important for us, we have to keep fighting. We have to start fighting again. »
I thought a lot about Tremblay on Saturday, when I read Émilie Dubreuil’s report (for Radio-Canada) on the teaching of French in English-speaking CEGEPs, in particular at John Abbott College, in the “West Island”. . One of the teachers interviewed speaks of “children whose parents are French-speaking, but who always say at the end of their cégep: “I am 18 years old and my house is blue.” »
Another says that some French-speaking students are allergic to their own culture. “It’s not self-hatred, it’s self-denial. They are Anglophones in their minds. They don’t want to belong to the wrong gang, that of the poor, uneducated, unilingual, closed in on themselves”.
THE REAL WORLD?
Dear Michel, in your last piece, you wonder if you are still relevant, if what you have to say still has an echo. I reassure you. With your plays, your novels, your well-directed rants, you are more relevant than ever.
I just wonder how many students at John Abbott College know who you are.
Reference-www.journaldemontreal.com