The Financial Post, August 13, 1977
France’s view on Quebec: to keep French, stay Canadian
By Donald Rumball
IT IS BELIEVED in top circles of the French government that the best way to preserve the French language in North America is for Quebec to remain a province of Canada.
But the government is not going to say so officially.
Canadians may be forgiven for being skeptical, accustomed as they are to reading stories in their newspapers of how Paris slights enraged federal representatives and gives Quebec delegations the kind of treatment normally reserved for official visitors from sovereign nations.
The opinion comes, however, from one of the top civil servants at the Quai d’Orsay, labyrinthine home of France’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The thinking on Quebec is not, of course, uniform – as is the case on almost any issue in France. There is, however, a unanimous commitment to encourage French culture in Quebec and Franco-Quebecois co-operation has built many bridges across the Atlantic.
But this civil servant voiced fears that, were Quebec to separate from Canada, its culture would face far greater threats by being sucked into the U.S. economic vortex.
French officials know only too well that an independent Quebec would turn first to France for help – and that could prove awkward at a time when the country has more than enough economic difficulties of its own.
For that, and a number of other very good reasons, France has resolved to keep out of the Canadian squabble. This is precisely what the Quebec government wants, according to a spokesman for Claude Morin, Quebec’s Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs.
Indeed the Quai d’Orsay has found official visits from Premier Rene Levesque’s envoys far more relaxed than those of Premier Robert Bourassa. Bourassa was apparently “aggressive” in asking the French to side with Quebec against Ottawa. “Perhaps Levesque feels he doesn’t need to prove anything,” one official said.
Ottawa is equally pleased to have France stay on the sidelines and it would appear that the Canadian embassy and Quebec delegation in Paris have a good, co-operative working relationship. “We tease each other a lot,” said officials in both contacted by The Post.
“The embassy is more concerned with trade,” says Raymond Morissette, economic counsellor to the Quebec delegation. “We are more occupied with attracting industry to Quebec. We work well together and refer enquiries to each other when it’s helpful.”
Parisian calm
Morin’s visit to Paris last spring was in the same vein. One French official involved in the talks described the delegation as expressing “great friendliness for the Canadian government.”
The calmness in Paris seems far away here in Canada – senior embassy officials are particularly concerned about the “paranoid” Toronto press. But the game in Paris is better viewed in the context of the complicated French political scene.
It is a tricky situation for France, and there are some real slights to federal government visitors, but France’s stance is logical and, as much as is possible in the perspective of its internal politics, non-discriminatory.
It is only natural for France to show a great interest in the largest concentration of French-speaking people outside its boundaries. The extraordinary blossoming of French-Canadian culture since the quiet revolution of the 1960s could not help but attract interest from France. Several Canadian singers now enjoy enormous popularity there. It’s amazing, for example, how many Frenchmen can sing Gilles Vigneault’s “Mon pays, c’est l’hiver.” All of a sudden, the “lost continent” of peasants has become vibrant. With the sudden arrival of an indigenous culture, the awakening Quebecois looked naturally to the French.
The French responded, naturally – as they have done in New Brunswick, Manitoba and even in Louisiana, where attempts are now being made to rekindle the language. In this year’s budget, for example, France will spend more than $13 million on propagating its culture in North America – $5 million in Quebec, $2.5 million in the rest of Canada and $3 million each in Mexico and the U.S.
Ties with France
If the impact has been greatest in Quebec, that’s because the Quebec government matched the French grants and has energetically pursued the institutionalization of its ties with France. The federal government, perhaps with different priorities, has been a great deal less vigorous.
French officials are puzzled at the shock expressed in Canada at their grant to L’Evangeline, the francophone newspaper in Moncton, N.B. It seems natural to them to help a struggling paper in an area where the French language stands in great danger of being overwhelmed by English.
The answer to accusations of sending “agents” to Canada to stir up Quebec nationalism is more complicated. The activities of Xavier Daniau, a Gaullist deputy in the French National Assembly, are embarrassing – but, officials ask, “Can we stop an elected deputy from expressing his views?”
As for Philippe Rossillon, the civil servant and former head of a commission promoting French, accused by Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau of being “more or less a secret agent,” the explanation of a senior diplomat at the Quai d’Orsay is still more revealing. When asked why the government had not fired Rossillon for acting against government policy, the diplomat explained it wasn’t worth its while because the Gaullists in the National Assembly would kick up such a stink it would become embarrassing for the government.
The argument stops right there, at Jacques Chirac, inheritor of the mantle of General Charles de Gaulle and Georges Pompidou. He has built a new party, Rally for the Republic, on the ruins of the Gaullist Union for a Democratic Republic, modernizing its policies and changing its direction. But one policy he has left intact is the support for francophone communities outside France. De Gaulle’s “Vive le Quebec libre” lives on – sort of.
For Chirac, it’s a no-risk policy, a great deal more popular in France than the blurred, intricate policy of the present government – “He’ll grab every vote he can get,” says one official in the Canadian embassy, a view supported by practically every observer of French politics.
Since he resigned as prime minister in August last year, Chirac bears none of the responsibility of government, yet his party is by far the largest in the government coalition in the National Assembly. In the shower of policy differences between Chirac and President Valery Giscard d’Estaing, favoritism toward Quebec is one area where Giscard will not choose to do battle.
So Chirac’s enthusiasm for Quebec delegations (which was too much even for Morin, one of his spokesmen said) is left unchallenged.
But Chirac is not averse to playing both ends against the middle. When he asked Francois Cloutier, then head of the Quebec delegation, to sit at the head table during a ceremonial dinner, he called Canadian Ambassador Gerard Pelletier to say he had asked Cloutier to sit at the head table only because he’s a “great personal friend.”
Spokesmen for Chirac also deny that he is trying to create problems. Jerome Monod, who is in charge of organization for the RPR, says the implications of Chirac’s endorsement of Morin were “unintended.” And indeed, some of his remarks were taken out of context – not to mention the omission of any reference in the Canadian press to the correct, pro-Canada speech given by the Minister of Foreign Affairs Louis de Guiringaud at the Morin reception.
It’s quite a different story at the corporate level where daily contact with the increasingly important French presence in the Canadian economy (see report later in this issue) breeds different pressures.
Bad for business
Investments by French companies are spread right across Canada and the uncertainty about Quebec is bad for business – as is all the federal/provincial wrangling.
Says Andre Chevalier, director for the Americas in the International Affairs department of Rhone-Poulenc, the giant French conglomerate: “Levesque disturbs investors because his government creates too many problems. Even if he loses his referendum, no one will invest there if he gets 30%-40^% of the vote in favor.”
Rhone-Poulenc’s holdings in Canada include Poulenc Ltd., which manufactures pharmaceuticals in Montreal, and May & Baker (Canada) Ltd., a subsidiary of the British firm controlled by Rhone-Poulenc. The operating headquarters of May & Baker were transferred to Toronto from Montreal last year.
This attitude by business is perhaps inevitable and, in any case, peripheral. The action lies is the political relationship between Paris, Ottawa and Quebec City. The imbalance of that tripod is nothing short of remarkable.
In the past 10 years, while Ottawa dozed, Quebec and France built a structure of co-operation that has now acquired a life of its own. Under the Permanent Commission of Franco-Quebec Co-operation, the two governments have established strong links in language, culture, social affairs, education, youth and economic affairs.
Exchanges
Without going into the numerous exchanges of personnel and information at all government, corporate and cultural levels, suffice it to mention two developments:
- In economic affairs, both governments have been successfully encouraging links between companies in the two countries. Marine Industries, Bombardier-MLW and Hydro-Quebec are just three of the companies that have profited from these initiatives.
This fall, a group 100 executives from small- and medium-sized French companies will visit Quebec to explore possibilities for expanding in the province. The French employers’ association plans to make a cross-Canada tour, probably this fall. - The regular exchange of students and teachers has now extended to France’s elite and crack school of public administration, l’Ecole Nationale d’Administration. The highly qualified graduates of this school form the backbone of the senior ranks of the impressive civil service and Quebec is developing a similar school through exchanges of teachers and students.
Some Quebec companies that are partly state owned have also sent executives to France for management training.
The result is an increasingly French flavor to the key sectors of influence in the province – a trend initiated by former premier Jean Lesage long before the Parti Quebecois came to power but only now bearing fruit. Several Quebec government agencies are now modelled on French agencies – Soquip and Soquem, to name just two. The Caisse de Depots et Placements also draws much of its inspiration, if not its exact form, from the French Caisse des Depots et Consignations.
Whether Canada likes it or not, it is becoming apparent that Quebec has acquired a new social and political orientation that sets it apart from the other provinces. The Quebecois are still not like the French and do not look like becoming so. But the leaders of Quebec society do have an affinity for the French that didn’t exist 15 years ago.
That doesn’t mean that Quebec can’t work well within Confederation (as Britain and France are doing to an increasing degree within the European Community). It does not mean that France wants Quebec to separate and go it alone – but it’s a factor that cannot be ignored in any attempt to preserve Confederation.
Recent Comments