(Quebec) The Legault government launched a new advertising offensive on Wednesday to challenge Quebecers in the face of the decline of French. The bearer of the message this time is the peregrine falcon, a “really sick” bird of prey that is known to be “pretty chill”.
The ad, which ends with a solemn government message written in white on a black background (“In Quebec, French is in decline. Let’s reverse the trend.”), uses a level of language that refers to the words chosen by teenagers when they talk to each other.
“The Peregrine Falcon. This really sick bird of prey is known to be quite chill. Because it is super quick in flight, it can spend most of its time watching its surroundings. But despite his hunting skills being insane, the future of the peregrine falcon remains sketchy,” the narrator recites.
The advertisement, broadcast Wednesday on the social networks of the Minister of the French Language, Jean-François Roberge, reacted to the leader of the Parti québécois (PQ), Paul St-Pierre Plamondon.
“It is within the government that we must realize that French is in decline, the population has already been aware for more than five years. We reiterate that we are available to provide you with a contingency plan to protect our language,” he wrote on Twitter.
The president of the national committee of young PQ members, Marie-Laurence Desagné, for her part, deplored that advertising caricatures young people “whom we nevertheless wish to interest in the fate of our language”.
For her part, the Quebec Liberal Party (PLQ) spokesperson for the French language, Madwa-Nika Cadet, for her part deplored that the Coalition avenir Québec (CAQ) had “concealed the report of the committee of experts about proficiency in French in college for 13 months”, before asking “what recommendations do you plan to implement immediately rather than launching an advertising campaign”.