Aurélie Arnaud

By Dan Laxer
The Suburban

The City of Montreal has appointed a director of its newly-created Bureau de la langue française. The bureau was created last February on a recommendation by the city’s French Language Committee, under the leadership of Louise Harel, former interim PQ leader.

The new director Aurélie Arnaud has held key positions within the City of Montreal since 2016, including Indigenous reconciliation, ecological transition, transportation, and of course the promotion of the French language. She has been involved in the linguistic file since 2017, drafting the very first Action Plan for the Promotion of the French Language, successfully obtaining francization certificates in all boroughs.

Arnaud’s appointment “marks an important step in fulfilling our commitment to making French a living, inclusive language that is fully anchored in Montreal life,” says Caroline Bourgeois, Executive Committee member responsible for the French language. “As a Francophone metropolis of the Americas, we have a responsibility to be exemplary and promote our language in all spheres of municipal life. This Office will play a central role in supporting our services and strengthening our collective action in favor of the French language.”

Arnaud’s role will be to support municipal services in the implementation of actions aimed at promoting, enhancing, and protecting the French language throughout Montreal.

The Bureau’s mission, according to the City, “is to strengthen the use of French in the City’s services and activities, in line with the recommendations of the French Language Committee, in addition to accelerating the City’s transition to exemplary behavior and the implementation of the new provisions of the Charter since the adoption of the Act respecting the official and common language of Quebec, French. It also manages funding agreements with the Ministry of the French Language, particularly through the Program for the Promotion and Valorization of the French Language.

Arnaud will oversee the implementation of the City’s next Action Plan for the Promotion of the French Language, mobilize municipal departments around common objectives, monitor commitments made, and lead concrete initiatives to support the presence and vitality of French in communications, services, and administrative practices. She will also play a key role in establishing strategic partnerships, ensuring accountability, and promoting the City’s actions to the public and partner institutions.

Her appointment, the press release reads, is part of the city’s desire to make French a lever for social cohesion, inclusion, and collective pride, while affirming its role as a French-speaking metropolis of the Americas.

The creation of the bureau has its critics, those who question its need, given that the provincial language laws already apply to the city. As Andrew Cadell of the Task Force on Linguistic Policy told The Suburban in February, it will come down to how the new Bureau applies that law. The hope, he said, is that the office will offer the non-Francophone community some flexibility. n