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Step up your game, France (thelemmy.club)
submitted 1 month ago* by to c/politicalmemes@lemmy.world
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Step up your game, France
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[–] 38 points 1 month ago (18 children)

It's funny from afar, but not fun to be in. They have what essentially amounts to a language police that enforces absurd and IMO human rights infringing laws. They regularly land in the news for things like threatening to fine a restaurant for using the word "pasta" on their menus.

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  • [–] 8 points 1 month ago (3 children)

    Related "fun" fact: Quebec is the most prolific user of the Notwithstanding Clause, which allows the Parliament of Canada or any province or territory thereof to "temporarily" override parts of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (essentially Canada's Bill of Rights). They know what they're doing.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 month ago (2 children)

    I'm not sure why you're getting all the downvotes, you're absolutely right.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 month ago

    With the trade war on, Quebec has been declared the good side. Whyever would you mention negative things about the good side? Are you on the bad side????

    Downvote deployed, take that, evildoer!

    -AverageLemming, apparently

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  • [–] 2 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (8 children)

    Having received warnings from the OQLF for stuff, they have always been courteous, patient and open to accommodations. Honestly, if you don't throw a hissy fit it always works out fine and any penalty is easily avoidable.

    The unfortunate reality is they have to investigate every complaint even if it's spurious.

    They also have cool guides on vocabulary for stuff you might only have english words for. People need to move on from 1976 lol.

    The only people who stand to benefit slacking on enforcement are big American companies who want to save a tiny expense. The same who are pressuring us in current trade talks. So no, I don't accept this constant malicious framing of reasonable enforcement of the law.

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  • [–] 0 points 1 month ago (7 children)

    a government body won't prosecute you if you don't throw a hissy fit about their human rights abuses. I never had problems with it, and they even have cool guides for you to avoid violations. We need to move on from that discussion

    Yeah, no, that's not an argument. It doesn't change that the system is unacceptable.

    And no, it's not just big American companies who are affected - in fact, they're affected the least. They have the deep pockets that small, local businesses don't have. And none of it changes the fact that the government has absolutely no fucking business telling anyone which languages they are and aren't allowed to speak.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (6 children)

    You are quoting me having modified my words, so you are not engaging with this in good faith.

    Signage laws are not human rights abuses.

    The right to work in French is not a human right abuse.

    Making a strawman of it doesn't change reality.

    My rights as a Quebec anglophone have been better respected in the last 100 years than the rights of francophones in Ontario, Manitoba and New Brunswick. We should be proud of this heritage we built for ourselves in Quebec. Our cultural rights are legally protected.

    Yes you are simping for American companies who have literally been pressuring the federal government for weeks/months/years to cave on every single language protection.

    Small businesses have been, at worst, mildly inconvenienced in the last 50 years of signage laws existing. Society has been fine, apart from angryphones bitching now and then.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 month ago (5 children)

    I was paraphrasing you. But OK, then we'll play by your rules:

    Signage laws are not human rights abuses.

    If they restrict what I'm allowed to write in which language, that's a restriction of my freedom of speech, which is a human right. Next.

    The right to work in French is not a human right abuse.

    Making a strawman of it doesn't change reality.

    I never said it was. But ah, the accusations that are actually confessions. Next.

    My rights as a Quebec anglophone have been better respected in the last 100 years than the rights of francophones in Ontario, Manitoba and New Brunswick

    Hmm, weird, I don't recall laws forcing Francophones in Ontario to run their businesses in English, make their signage English, forcing them to go to English schools, and a whole range of other things.

    Yes you are simping

    Ah, another accusation that's actually a confession. Next.

    Society has been fine, apart from angryphones bitching now and then.

    Yeah, when a significant portion of the province's politics are "how can we further restrict what is allowed to be done in one language while using the excuse of protecting another language as a way to drown out any opposition", society is not fine.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 month ago (4 children)

    -Commercial speech is not protected speech and is highly regulated in every democratic country.

    -The right to work in French is the basis of why workplace language laws exist.

    -Yeah actually, read your history. French schools were banned by those provinces at different times.

    👍🏻

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  • [–] 1 point 1 month ago (3 children)

    -Commercial speech is not protected speech and is highly regulated in every democratic country.

    What a cop out. They regulate things like false advertising, not the words and the language you're allowed to put on your signs. False equivalency.

    -The right to work in French is the basis of why workplace language laws exist.

    That's like saying "the right for white people to work is the basis of why segregation laws exist". It's absolutely unnecessary and a sorry excuse for trampling on people's rights.

    -Yeah actually, read your history. French schools were banned by those provinces at different times.

    To be fair, I was thinking of more recent times, but fine, let's go back 100 years. Manitoba had restrictions on teaching French, but that's only an earlier part of the last hundred years. Regulation 17 in Ontario was repealed in 1927, so one of the last 100 years was affected. New Brunswick, on the contrary, even promoted french very strongly with a goal of becoming a bilingual province. So no, you can't say that the last 100 years were generally worse for Francophones in Canada than the present is for anglophones in Quebec. And even if it were the case, what's your point? "They suffered, so you have to suffer too"? What a pitiful argument. But it shows the hypocrisy fairly well: when it happens to Francophones in Canada: "bad, unacceptable repression", when it happens to anglophones in Quebec: "necessary measures to protect the French language". Give me a break.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (2 children)

    -Its not a false equivalency. Its laws around displaying products accurately to the population, ie. must be in a sufficient amount of french so the majority of the Population can read it.

    Btw, you can list any other language on signage, as long as french is also present and sufficiently prominent. Chinese restaurants have menus in chinese... but they double list the French items in a slightly larger font.

    -Why is it similar to segregation in any way? English is permitted in the workplace. Workplaces under certain # are fully exempt and workplaces needing english/or other foreign languages have broad exceptions. How is anyone's right trampled? The laws prevent requiring english proficiency when it is not necessary. Requiring it would be exclusionary.

    Try maintaining a job at companies in Toronto refusing to speak any english and see if you can argue a human rights abuse case for your subsequent dismissal.

    -I'm sorry, but this is contemporary enough. If you are upset at law 101, it came about in a context were some of these laws had only begun to be reversed in the 1960s and only partially. They had been in effect for many decades by then and its impact on french spoken outside of Quebec has been dramatic. Manitoba's french demographic has been effectively erased. Ontario's was maintained by underground clandestine schools. New Brunswick's dialect was creolized.

    Both Ontario and New Brunswick's school systems are systematically underfunded. Francophone communities are constantly lobbying to not get dismissed by chauvinistic governments, even today. Doug Ford and former Blaine Higgs were no friends to francophones.

    Compare honestly the state of English hospitals and schools, including cegeps and universities to those in New Brunswick, Ontario and Manitoba for francophones. Compare the language used in all four provincial legislators. Quebec's english language institutions are amongst the safest and best protected in the entire country. Find me a more protected minority group in the Western World.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 month ago (1 child)

    Its laws around displaying products accurately to the population, ie. must be in a sufficient amount of french so the majority of the Population can read it.

    Give me a break. They're being displayed accurately even if they're in another language. And if, for instance, you have something in english in Montreal, or especially in one of the predominantly English boroughs in Montreal, then the majority of the population can read it. The majority of the population also very definitely knows what pasta refers to.

    English is permitted in the workplace. Workplaces under certain # are fully exempt and workplaces needing english/or other foreign languages have broad exceptions.

    Hmm, if certain workplaces are exempt, maybe it's not as simple as "English is permitted in the workspace"? Or maybe that statement is even flat out false?

    Try maintaining a job at companies in Toronto refusing to speak any english and see if you can argue a human rights abuse case for your subsequent dismissal.

    Again, false equivalency. We're talking about forcing workplaces to be in a certain language, not refusing to speak the language of a workplace.

    Both Ontario and New Brunswick's school systems are systematically underfunded

    Lol, I've seen the EMSB. Don't even get me started.

    Find me a more protected minority group in the Western World.

    The problem is: you talk your way around, find excuses for and misrepresent the transgressions against anglophones. You excuse restrictions on free expression with things like "there's a handbook to avoid writing the wrong thing", you try to indirectly excuse abuses against anglophones with "look how bad Francophones have it elsewhere", and you do mental gymnastics to explain how forbidding languages is somehow an anti-exclusionary practice, it's absurd. At this point, there's no point comparing since you don't even accept what is happening with anglophones for what it is.

    Good god, it reminds me of arguing with fascists.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 month ago*

    Its ok, when you catch your breath and think it over rationally, you'll understand you are the one misunderstanding and misrepresenting it. And like its not your fault. The Montreal Gazette has been stoking this hate for decades.

    I gave you all the context you could possibly need. Now you just need to put yourself in the shoes of another person.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 month ago (1 child)

    I am legitimately curious what portion of the municipal budget is spent on having every fucking sign in two languages.

    I am quite conflicted about it. On one hand, it's kind of hilarious. But it's also extremely tryhard and tedious.

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  • [–] 0 points 1 month ago

    It's not even that, signs have to be mainly in French. Bar a few small exceptions, the English has to take up significantly less space than the French. Their stop signs literally say "ARRÊT" instead of "STOP" because that would be too much English influence. It's incredibly fucking petty.

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