Decline of French: Legault condemns Marc Miller’s remarks

Le premier ministre du Québec, François Legault, à l'hôtel de ville de Montréal le 21 novembre 2025. LA PRESSE CANADIENNE/Christopher Katsarov

Quebec Premier François Legault strongly condemned on Tuesday remarks made by Marc Miller, the new minister responsible for official languages in the Carney cabinet.

“Marc Miller is a disgrace to all Quebecers,” Legault said as he headed to Question Period. “I don’t know how he’s going to show his face at a cultural event in Quebec after saying such nonsense.”

Earlier in the day in Ottawa, Miller had reiterated the caveats he had expressed in 2023 regarding the decline of French in Quebec.

“What I refuse to accept is the dogma that certain political parties want to promote, which is that French is in total decline,” he said.

He argued that “the reality in all this is that there is good news, particularly the news from the past several decades thanks to Bill 101” and “thanks to the Canada-Quebec agreement” that gave the province several powers in the area of immigration, including the ability to prioritize French-speaking newcomers.

“French, I will repeat, is immensely fragile in North America, and it must be protected,” added Miller, who has also become Minister of Culture and Canadian Identity.

When asked to specify the extent to which he recognizes the decline of French, the minister replied that this is the case for the “language spoken at home” and, “statistically, at work.”

“We must make an extra effort,” he said.

Miller showed signs of exasperation with “the politicization of the issue.” “I think it’s being used for identity reasons, and I think that, as a Quebecer, I’m pretty tired of this debate, which is generally quite identity-based,” said the representative for the Montreal riding of Ville-Marie—Le Sud-Ouest—Île-des-Soeurs.

“Over the past two years, from 2022 to 2024, the percentage of Francophones in Montreal has dropped from 48 per cent to 43 per cent. And now Marc Miller, the new federal Minister of Culture, is saying he’s tired of the debate on the decline of French. What a shame!” fumed Legault.

In the fall of 2023, Miller refused to acknowledge the decline of French in Quebec—preferring to refer to it as a “threatened” language—before changing his mind.

“I don’t deny at all that French is in decline as a mother tongue,” he said in an interview with The Canadian Press.

He noted his annoyance at the Bloc Québécois’ “excessive” use of the statistical indicator of mother tongue. In his view, this suggests that those who learned French later in life are less Quebecois than others.

Miller was also among several Liberal politicians who had reservations about the reform of the Official Languages Act, which was passed in June 2023.

- by Émilie Bergeron et Caroline Plante with information from Michel Saba

- This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 2, 2025.