LES COPAINS DU SAMEDI AU CAFÉ CANADIEN-FRANÇAIS

 Gilles Vigneault

We saw that, in the past, French-Canadians would define their identity first as catholic, second as living in rural area, third as speaking French. Let’s take a look at some radical identity transformations that happened in the 1960s.

Each nation chooses symbols of their identity like a flag, a national anthem, a monument, a religion, etc. The national anthem of Canada (O Canada) has a history that illustrates the complex relationship between English and French Canadians. The song was originally composed in French for the celebration of St-Jean-Baptiste on June 24th, 1880. Saint Jean-Baptiste is the saint of French-Canadians, like Saint Patrick is for the Irish. So this song, “O Canada”, was not created to celebrate a whole country but to reinforce catholic values among French Canadians. If you take a look at verses II, III and IV, never sang in public, and for good reasons, you will read that French Canadians live “parmi les races étrangères” (“among foreign races”), meaning British and Indigenous people are “foreign” to the land of French Canadians. Yeah, I know. But because of its catchy music, English Canadians started to unofficially perform “O Canada” instead of “God Save the King”, the latter still legally the official national anthem of Canada until 1980! At first, lyrics were directly translated from the French version, but this did not go well with non-catholics. Further translations gradually became more like free adaptations and today the French and English versions of “O Canada” are completely different. Catholic values are still embedded in the French version (“ton bras sait porter la croix” - “your arm can carry the Holy Cross”) while the English version talks about “True North” and a “land glorious and free”, concepts totally foreign to French Canadians :-).

The flags of Québec [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_of_Quebec] is another interesting symbol. Created in 1948, at the height of a strong conservative, pro-catholic social and political context, the flag was inspired by another one waved by catholics in public processions. The white cross on the flag represents the catholic church, of course, while the four fleur-de-lys, strange enough, came to represent French language in Canada. I say strange because, in France, the fleur-de-lys was a symbol of the king and we know what happened to the last one in 1793. In France, it is the rooster that is seen as a symbol of French language.

At the beginning the 1960s, in Québec, deep social changes started to take place as a result of the urban migration that we talked about earlier and these changes included the rejection of catholic values, now considered anti-progressive and obsolete. Now, the first two cornerstones of French Canadian identity were gone and only French language was left to anchor the French-Canadian identity.

Gilles Vigneault (1928- ) started signing in the mid-1960s to crowds of people desperately looking for new values (non-catholic and non-rural). Because he celebrated the people of Québec in his lyrics, the Québécois just loved Gilles Vigneault and quickly dubbed him the “national poet”. His best known song is “Mon pays c’est l’hiver” (my country is winter) and “Gens du pays, c’est votre tour” (people of my country, it’s your turn). Note that the later is used in Québec along with “Happy Birthday” when celebrating one’s latest complete revolution around the sun. But I prefer to have you listen to “Les Gens de mon pays” in a live version from 1974 in which Vigneault describes how his fellow citizens love to talk to each others, love to listen to others and, implicitely, love the French language.