French “invasion“ of the city
The Gazette’s T’cha Dunlevy discusses the French “invasion” of Montreal (nice mistake, “tarte siflette” for tartiflette) now that 60,000 French nationals live in the city. With profiles of a few of the expats.
Update: Now they’ve fixed “tarte siflette” but have spelled “tartiflette” wrong.
Hamza 13:33 on 2019-12-28 Permalink
If there are people who can get upset at this headline there are probably anglos who never think to catch that ‘plateau’ and ‘mont’ or even ‘royal’ are all french too.
Michael Black 14:57 on 2019-12-28 Permalink
I don’t think this is about language, just an observation of a trend. And maybe made more obvious because a small area has a high density of people from France.
It’s not a new thing that people come over to go to University, but maybe is a more recent trend that people have stayed. Twenty years ago I knew a few dancers from France, Switzerland and I think Germany (but she spoke French), and they were here long enough that I thought they had moved here.
I guess the incentive is that they don’t have to learn a new language, but can move to a place that isn’t France.
Jo Walton 09:07 on 2019-12-29 Permalink
I go to book festivals in France fairly often, and I can confirm from personal conversations with people in France that there’s huge interest there in moving here for exactly the reason Michael suggests. Indeed, if I am in France walking along carrying my Fromagerie Atwater bag strangers will talk to me in the street about the possibilities of moving here. I always tell them yes, Montreal is lovely, yes, there are economic opportunities, yes, it isn’t perfect but… and that they need to know that people here take their shoes off in the house, because I wish somebody had told my (French) upstairs neighbours this.
dwgs 09:57 on 2019-12-29 Permalink
You’re doing the Lord’s work Jo Walton. I’ve had those neighbours.
Blork 12:19 on 2019-12-29 Permalink
Where I work, almost half of the new hires in the past five years or so have been from France and Belgium. These are software developers and data scientists in their late 20s and 30s who have skills and experience, and presumably they want to go somewhere where they can work without bearing the yoke of 50 invisible layers of patriarchy and social restrictions — I’m looking at you, France — and where their earnings can actually add up to something.
There’s also the issue of many of them wanting to improve their English without having to be fully immersed in an Anglo environment as they would be in The RoC, US, or UK. For example, where I work the day-to-day talk is mostly in French but probably 75% of meetings, 50% of email threads, and 80% of Slack threads have USers or South Americans looped in, so it happens in English. Also, 80% of customer interactions are in English.)
Kate 12:40 on 2019-12-29 Permalink
Jo, what’s the thing about shoes? Everyone takes boots off in the winter, but I was never raised to take ordinary street shoes off in the house when the weather isn’t messy.
I certainly don’t expect any visitor to do so, and I never like having to creep around in my socks in the houses of people who do enforce this.
DeWolf 12:56 on 2019-12-29 Permalink
Re. shoes – this is one of those things that makes people on the internet go wild because it’s about very deeply enshrined personal behaviour. I was raised to always take my shoes off in the house, which was also the case for everyone I knew in Calgary/Vancouver. It doesn’t seem as universal in Quebec where many people seem to wear shoes indoors in the summer.
Back to the main point: France has been experiencing a brain drain for a long time, but the global financial crisis sent an especially huge wave of people overseas and that wave never receded. Hong Kong’s French community exploded from about 5,000 people before 2008 to roughly 50,000 people today. Like in Montreal, many are young people on working holiday visas, but many more are young professionals who ended up having kids and staying. The French International School just built a fancy new campus in a newly-built suburb of Hong Kong that some have described as a kind of “French town.” When I walked around this fall there were already French bakeries and grocery stores selling imported European treats.
Kevin 21:03 on 2019-12-29 Permalink
I was raised to take off my shoes, as was just about everyone I’ve ever known.
I will bring my own slippers if going to someone else’s home, and I provide slippers for guests. (My of my gifts this season was a bag of guest slippers)
The first time I encountered people who left their shoes on indoors was when I was visiting relatives living in the US and their other guests kept their shoes on.
Kate 00:19 on 2019-12-30 Permalink
“Here, put a pair of these on” says the host, offering you a basket of hideous knitted things in garish colours, when your outfit is all black. No thank you. (Forgive me for feeling this is something of a power move.)
JaneyB 14:07 on 2019-12-30 Permalink
Also from shoes-off land eg: Wpg. Could be a holdover from the era of wall-to-wall carpeting. In apts, shoes are like elephants for those below. Phentex, ftw!
As for the Français immigrants, I’ll be the annoying person who wonders about all our home-grown software developers, data scientists, marketers, designers etc who can’t get work. I’ve met a few young Français and they always seem to have had way more experience and responsibility than our young grads. How can our grads compete with that?
Kevin 10:44 on 2019-12-31 Permalink
@Kate
If it’s a fancy-pants event, bring your indoor shoes.
CE 13:49 on 2019-12-31 Permalink
I grew up on the east coast and shoes always come off, no matter the season. I was out there last week and dropped by someone’s house to pick up a friend and they said to to leave my boots on. I felt very uncomfortable walking through their house with boots on. When I lived in South America for a few years, you ALWAYS keep your shoes on in the house. That took a very long time to get used to.