Quebec, the French Language, and Quebecois Identity

[kool maudit]

A note that might amuse the readers of this post...

I'll be in Paris in a few weeks for the first time in six years or so. I haven't spoken French except for fragments with my cousin for about as long. I am listening to Radio-France a bit in the car and such to refresh myself on the rhythms and a strange thing is happening...

...as I listen, I try and sort of verbalize my thoughts on the news and such in an internal way. But in the middle of workaday French sentences I have used a million times, I now find Swedish words cropping up. Something very simple like 'Ça marche' becomes 'Ça funkar'.

It is as though my mind has two slots, one for English and one for "other thing". En tant qu’anglophone dont les ancêtres viennent exclusivement des îles britanniques, je suppose que j’ai de la chance d’avoir les deux. But still. I don't need to be telling taxi drivers things like 'Mycket nära de l'Opéra Garnier' or whatever.

[New Brisavoine]

Originally Posted by kool maudit

I'll be in Paris in a few weeks for the first time in six years or so.

You're in for a shock then. Like visiting NYC at the height of dereliction, drugs, and crime rates in the 1980s. These days even Mexico City or Istanbul are better maintained than Paris.

One example, among tens of thousands (pictures taken on the same day last week: left, lawns managed by the Louvre Museum, which depends from the French state / on the right, lawns managed by the incompetent and hard-left City of Paris).



Another one: the devastated appearance of Boulevard St Germain, which used to be one of the richest parts of Paris: https://x.com/DeparisJulien/status/1906358806885400947

Or Boulevard St Michel, with most stores closed despite being in the heart of the Latin Quarter: https://x.com/jtidmarsh/status/1903443812275425672
(the guy is wrong in his comment though, it's not the result of "Macronism", but the result of local municipal policies by the Socialist-Green-Communist coalition ruling the city since 2001; Macron is only guilty in the sense that instead of disbanding the city council and running the city directly by the French state as Margaret Thatcher did with London in 1986, he has allowed they crackpots running this city to continue their destruction of our capital city without intervening)

Of course it's even worse in the suburbs between CDG airport and the city center: https://x.com/AbdoulayeK3/status/1906471469023994349

If you want to feel in a developed country (and keep a good image of France), make sure to visit Neuilly-sur-Seine, or Saint-Cloud, or Versailles, where the local municipalities still have a first-world management of streets and parks, and things are neat and clean. Crossing the border from Neuilly into Paris these days is a bit like crossing the border from San Diego into Tijuana (I know because I've crossed both).

These are the streets of Neuilly for example (Parisians, like the guy who posted it, are still amazed whenever they step into Neuilly, which as close to the city center as Westmount in Montréal): https://x.com/aurelien_veron/status/1903469667416527129

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by kool maudit

A note that might amuse the readers of this post...

I'll be in Paris in a few weeks for the first time in six years or so. I haven't spoken French except for fragments with my cousin for about as long. I am listening to Radio-France a bit in the car and such to refresh myself on the rhythms and a strange thing is happening...

...as I listen, I try and sort of verbalize my thoughts on the news and such in an internal way. But in the middle of workaday French sentences I have used a million times, I now find Swedish words cropping up. Something very simple like 'Ça marche' becomes 'Ça funkar'.

It is as though my mind has two slots, one for English and one for "other thing". En tant qu’anglophone dont les ancêtres viennent exclusivement des îles britanniques, je suppose que j’ai de la chance d’avoir les deux. But still. I don't need to be telling taxi drivers things like 'Mycket nära de l'Opéra Garnier' or whatever.

Lucky you, in spite of what New Brisavoine says.

And your French will come back, I'm sure.

[New Brisavoine]

Originally Posted by kool maudit

I don't need to be telling taxi drivers things like 'Mycket nära de l'Opéra Garnier' or whatever.

Hopefully you're not a woman. It's become rather unsafe for women to use taxis in Paris. Earlier this month for example one British woman who took a taxi in the (supposedly more civilized) western part of the city was driven to the Bois de Boulogne by the taxi driver where he severally raped her. She managed to escape and seek refuge in the garden of some people.

It's more and more like that with all these young immigrants from Muslim countries, who come from countries where their sexuality is repressed and who prey on women here, with no morality whasoever. If I were a woman in Paris, I would trust neither taxis, nor Uber deliveries (quite a few cases of Uber deliveries at night where the guy delivering the food raped the female client). Metro can be dangerous too (it's not uncommon for these guys to rub against women in overcrowded metro trains in order to masturbate). Also avoid walking around the Eiffel Tower after dusk, as the police notoriously fails to police the area (and even during the day, you'll see what a 'cour des miracles' this area has become).

PS: My dictionary somehow translates "cour des miracles" as "Skid Row". I know no other European country where all these African and Eastern European gypsies are allowed to totally occupy and destroy the most iconic tourist monument of the city. The level of laxness in France is beyond belief. We're the caricature that conforms to all the clichés the MAGA crowd can have about leftist polities.

PPS: Oh, I forgot to say that you should at all cost avoid taking a taxi between CDG (if that's where you arrive) and the city center, as they will either overcharge you, or rob you (I mean literally drive you somewhere and rob you). There are also lots of 'fake' taxis at CDG these days. The best is to simply take the RER (even if it's dirty due to the lack of maintenance by our public transport authority).

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by New Brisavoine

Hopefully you're not a woman. It's become rather unsafe for women to use taxis in Paris. Earlier this month for example one British woman who took a taxi in the (supposedly more civilized) western part of the city was driven to the Bois de Boulogne by the taxi driver where he severally raped her. She managed to escape and seek refuge in the garden of some people.

It's more and more like that with all these young immigrants from Muslim countries, who come from countries where their sexuality is repressed and who prey on women here, with no morality whasoever. If I were a woman in Paris, I would trust neither taxis, nor Uber deliveries (quite a few cases of Uber deliveries at night where the guy delivering the food raped the female client). Metro can be dangerous too (it's not uncommon for these guys to rub against women in overcrowded metro trains in order to masturbate). Also avoid walking around the Eiffel Tower after dusk, as the police notoriously fails to police the area (and even during the day, you'll see what a 'cour des miracles' this area has become).

PS: My dictionary somehow translates "cour des miracles" as "Skid Row". I know no other European country where all these African and Eastern European gypsies are allowed to totally occupy and destroy the most iconic tourist monument of the city. The level of laxness in France is beyond belief. We're the caricature that conforms to all the clichés the MAGA crowd can have about leftist polities.

PPS: Oh, I forgot to say that you should at all cost avoid taking a taxi between CDG (if that's where you arrive) and the city center, as they will either overcharge you, or rob you (I mean literally drive you somewhere and rob you). There are also lots of 'fake' taxis at CDG these days. The best is to simple take the RER (even if it's dirty due to the lack of maintenance by our public transport authority).

Ça va bien!

[kool maudit]

I have heard these things about Paris. I heard Dublin has become quite a bit worse as well.

I am not a woman and it is not as though Stockholm has none of this sort of thing either, although our situation is much more biased towards crime than street-disorder (very American in this sense), so it'll probably be fine.

I'll likely share my impressions here, although I am only in town for three days and I'll be in a nice Rive-Droite location, so we'll see.

[kool maudit]

Originally Posted by New Brisavoine

We're the caricature that conforms to all the clichés the MAGA crowd can have about leftist polities.

It is as though European '68ers, after seeing the restive state of race relations in America, conjured up some Mississippis of their own through immigration and were sure they would do much better than those dumb rednecks.

And then they didn't.

[New Brisavoine]

Originally Posted by Acajack

Ça va bien!

Non, ça va mal.

Like most Parisians, I try not to pay attention to my surroundings anymore, and I walk/explore much less the city than I used to, in order not to be too depressed, plus I stick to the less affected western areas, and avoid as much as possible the eastern areas, but even with all these precautions it's hard to avoid the sense of dereliction and Third Worldization. I lived in Mexico City, and it's shocking to see Paris becoming worse than Mexico City.

Also, it's far worse than NYC in the 1980s because New Yorkers in the 1980s a- paid far less taxes than we do (it's maddening that we live in such filth and dereliction with the highest tax rates in the world), and b- they had other choices of large cities where to live in the US, whereas in France we only have Paris and then some provincial towns. So if Paris is a dead zone, that means there's nowhere to go (except moving abroad, which more and more people do if they can).

[New Brisavoine]

Originally Posted by kool maudit

I'll be in a nice Rive-Droite location, so we'll see.

What is a "nice Rive Droite location"? I know no nice Rive Droite location anymore (unless we call the 16th arrondissement "Rive Droite"). If you mean the Marais, you're in for a VERY BIG shock, as Le Marais has gone down the hill at a fast rate since Covid. The neighborhood is unrecognizable, with struggling stores (due to blocked streets, thanks to our anti-automobile municipality), African tramps (and tents) everywhere, destroyed streets, etc. Last year for the entire year (even during the Olympic Games) there was an Indian-looking guy who lived on a tiny section of the sidewalk in one of the most ancient and prestigious streets of the Marais, it was disgusting (he often pooed on the sidewalk, in view of everybody, and his big brown feces remained there in full view of everybody on the tiny sidewalk for the entire day, forcing you to walk in the middle of the street along with cars). For an entire year, no public authority or NGO took him out of there. Now he's gone (did he die? was he finally placed somewhere? dunno). That was only 3 minutes walk from the Paris city hall, and just 300 yards from the prestigious BHV department store.

So nice Rive Droite location?

The only areas that are still okeyish (although a bit dirty, and with lack of proper maintenance of sidewalks, trees, parks) are the 16th arrondissement, the 7th arrondissement (except for Champ de Mars and Eiffel Tower which have become a dead zone full of criminality), and bits of the rest of Rive Gauche here and there. Rive Droite is a disaster everywhere (the Champs-Elysées neighborhood has become a disaster, never seen the sidewalks in such disrepair, they've destroyed all the gardens, etc, etc).

[Acajack]

People say this is the case with Montreal these days. Which is probably partly true and partly an exaggeration.

I spent a week there earlier this month (right in the core near Ste-Catherine) and while it was still an enjoyable city to be in, I did witness a few incivilities in the short period of time I was there: a scary-looking guy taken down by police with tasers out to calm him, and someone throwing something heavy at a window of a restaurant, breaking it.

Of course, Montreal always had an edgier side, notably in the 90s when our friend Kool Maudit lived there. More Marseille than Paris in some ways.

But all of that had faded greatly since the 21st century, and a more genteel feel for the city took over.

Now the gritty rougher side seems to be coming back. Not to the point where it's unlivable, but you notice the change. Even my eldest who has lived there for 3 years has noticed a change in that short time.

Of course, this isn't unique to Montreal. It's a trend across much of the western world.

Even placid old Ottawa across the river from where I sit in Gatineau feels quite a bit rougher and grittier these days.

[New Brisavoine]

Originally Posted by Acajack

People say this is the case with Montreal these days. Which is probably partly true and partly an exaggeration.

I spent a week there earlier this month (right in the core near Ste-Catherine) and while it was still an enjoyable city to be in, I did witness a few incivilities in the short period of time I was there: a scary-looking guy taken down by police with tasers out to calm him, and someone throwing something heavy at a window of a restaurant, breaking it.

Of course, Montreal always had an edgier side, notably in the 90s when our friend Kool Maudit lived there. More Marseille than Paris in some ways.

But all of that had faded greatly since the 21st century, and a more genteel feel for the city took over.

Now the gritty rougher side seems to be coming back. Not to the point where it's unlivable, but you notice the change. Even my eldest who has lived there for 3 years has noticed a change in that short time.

Of course, this isn't unique to Montreal. It's a trend across much of the western world.

Even placid old Ottawa across the river from where I sit in Gatineau feels quite a bit rougher and grittier these days.

Again, you're talking from a jurisdiction with only 35% of GDP between taxed by public authorities. I'm talking from a jurisdiction where 44% of GDP is taxed by public authorities. I wouldn't mind the derelict state of Paris if our tax rates were the same as in the US or Canada and I had several thousand more euros on my bank account every month!

[kool maudit]

Well I'll be staying in the western part of the 2nd. I guess I am rolling the dice.

Still, I have enjoyed longer trips to places like Detroit, Napoli and others, so perhaps the French capital might still be able to pull this off.

[kool maudit]

Originally Posted by Acajack

Of course, Montreal always had an edgier side, notably in the 90s when our friend Kool Maudit lived there.

I was there from 1996-2012 so I saw it change a lot. The '90s city was more seedy than violent. And it was also very charming despite/because of that.

My first night in town, actually, I was coming out of the Burger King that was on the corner of St-Laurent and Ste-Catherine when a hooker aggressively walked basically into me, putting open hands on my hips and quoting services while two guys started to close in from either side. Then a paddywagon rolled by and all three dropped and faded to the sides as if reacting to a stage direction. But that area was a red-light district then.

[P'tit Renard]

Originally Posted by Acajack

Lucky you, in spite of what New Brisavoine says.

And your French will come back, I'm sure.

Yea, kool maudit's seen the shambolic state of Toronto's public realm not too long ago (now with fun Montreal sized potholes, homeless tents crowding sidewalks and the TTC subway now often smelling like a dirty NYC toilet), so comparatively speaking central Paris isn't that bad.

[New Brisavoine]

Originally Posted by kool maudit

Well I'll be staying in the western part of the 2nd.

Western part of the 2nd is not the worst part of Rive Droite, but even there, there is some dereliction and lack of proper maintenance here and there.

Originally Posted by kool maudit

Still, I have enjoyed longer trips to places like Detroit, Napoli and others, so perhaps the French capital might still be able to pull this off.

Naples has great weather, good (and cheap) food, and stunning scenery. Paris has none of that. So if you remove the bourgeois aesthetics and well maintained streets and parks, what remains?

Detroit, I don't know what one could find attractive about Detroit. Not my idea of a place for vacations.

[New Brisavoine]

Originally Posted by kool maudit

My first night in town, actually, I was coming out of the Burger King that was on the corner of St-Laurent and Ste-Catherine when a hooker aggressively walked basically into me, putting open hands on my hips and quoting services

In French or in English?

[kool maudit]

Originally Posted by New Brisavoine

In French or in English?

Haitian French

[harls]

Originally Posted by kool maudit

I was there from 1996-2012 so I saw it change a lot. The '90s city was more seedy than violent. And it was also very charming despite/because of that.

My first night in town, actually, I was coming out of the Burger King that was on the corner of St-Laurent and Ste-Catherine when a hooker aggressively walked basically into me, putting open hands on my hips and quoting services while two guys started to close in from either side. Then a paddywagon rolled by and all three dropped and faded to the sides as if reacting to a stage direction. But that area was a red-light district then.

My first night in town was wild as well. Coworkers took me to that same corner after my first day at work back in 2001.

Then came many more wild nights, as you were witnessed to a few times.

[New Brisavoine]

Originally Posted by kool maudit

Haitian French

Haitian French or Haitian Creole? It's not the same thing. I doubt it was Haitian French, as a- you wouldn't have recognized it (the accent is very subtle), and b- only the upper classes speak Haitian French, not a hooker in the street. (unless you meant she was speaking Québécois French as an immigrant, with a Haitian accent? )

This is Haitian French (the accent is subtle):

• Video Link

[kool maudit]

Originally Posted by New Brisavoine

Haitian French or Haitian Creole? It's not the same thing. I doubt it was Haitian French, as a- you wouldn't have recognized it (the accent is very subtle), and b- only the upper classes speak Haitian French, not a hooker in the street. (unless you meant she was speaking Québécois French as an immigrant, with a Haitian accent? )

This is Haitian French (the accent is subtle):

• Video Link

I was a Canadian Anglo in my late teens. I really didn't know the particularities at the time, and if I know more now, I have never thought to apply it to that encounter. The trio were French-speaking people of African descent in Montreal in 1996. That scanned as Haitian. Perhaps I am wildly off and they were from Abidjan or something. Most of that sort of street life around that corner at that time was Quebecois people. Most of it was fairly live-and-let-live, too, with the crime happening a level or two up the scale from randos in the road. That sort of thing was not common. But it was a very brief encounter. I felt like Travis Bickle or something. There was a bit of that vibe in Montreal back then.