Dieppe prepares to celebrate French language

Congrès Mondial Acadien in Dieppe in 2019 (Courtesy: City of Dieppe)

MONCTON — With planning well underway, the City of Dieppe is getting ready to highlight the French language and its history later this month.

The city was chosen by the Province of New Brunswick to host the 2023 International Francophonie Day festivities, which will take place from March 20-31^st with a handful of different events planned.

“It’s very exciting for us,” said Mayor Yvon Lapierre. “Obviously the use of the French language is always something that we pride ourselves on and we have a large majority, a very large majority, of our citizens that are Francophonie’s.”

The celebrations will include events like a youth story and sing along, a cooking class with Chef Luc Schofield and a discussion panel.

This year’s theme is Nous célébrons la Francophonie or celebrating la Francophonie. On top of festivities for everyone to enjoy, Lapierre says it’s also a chance to highlight how far Dieppe has come since declaring as a francophone city back in the early 2000s.

“It was not a popular thing with everybody, but I would say for citizens of Dieppe it was a big thing and I think it’s paid off for us over the years to attract and build on the Francophonie, our heritage,” he said.

Adding, “It’ll be everything to do with the story of Dieppe and the fact that when we go back, even to when I moved here actually, it was 1977, a number of years ago, but it was just a small community of about 7000 people. Today the City of Dieppe is 30,000 people or more, we’re pushing 31,000.”

He says events this year will be bigger with the financial support from the province and the exposure to the community will benefit everybody.

“We work hard at it,” he said. “It was not always the most popular thing, like I said going way back, but today people are proud, you can see it in their eyes, and they’re proud to live in Dieppe and participate in the events and really get involved in the community.”

Dieppe celebrates Francophonie Day every year according to Lapierre, but that isn’t the only event that shines a light on the French language and its importance.

Back in 2019 the city held events as part of theCongrès mondial acadien (CMA) and it recognizes the Dieppe Raid from 1942.

“On the 19^th of August, or the closest Sunday to the 19^th of August, it’s not a celebration but a recognition of where our name comes from,” said Lapierre. “It’s a credit that we owe to the Canadian soldiers that died on the beaches of Dieppe on the 19^th of August, 1942.”

“We’re proud of the name,” he adds. “We have good relationship with the folks from Dieppe France and we want to continue that.”

He says there’s a number of veterans in Dieppe that are very active in the city and it’s important to recognize their work, other armed forces residents, and the history in the community.

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