québécois identity, the separatist movement, all this, but i have to get right to the pressing matter of the day: pastagate. [ laughter ] patrick: pastagate. what do you want to know about pastagate? anthony: for those not up on current quebec politics, pastagate refers to an incident where local authorities notified an italian restaurant that they were in violation of french laws because they used the word pasta, which is italian. this is patrick: okay, stop apologizing, okay? [ laughter ] anthony: don t get me wrong. my last name is bourdain. i lean french, hard. i am enormously sympathetic to the language laws. patrick: you don t think it s preposterous? anthony: i do not think it s preposterous. but here we have a situation. [ laughter ] patrick: it is stupid. uh, i agree with you completely that this this province, 40 years ago, was in some respect an english city. so we needed to have language laws for signage and stuff. anthony: now, signage, for instance
extent even today. journalist patrick lagacé meets me for lunch at bistro m sur masson to help me understand a little bit of what many québécois feel is at stake. so, i was going to talk about the whole history of french québécois identity, the separatist movement, all this, but i have to get right to the pressing matter of the day: pastagate. [ laughter ] patrick: pastagate. what do you want to know about pastagate? anthony: for those not up on current quebec politics, pastagate refers to an incident where local authorities notified an italian restaurant that they were in violation of french laws because they used the word pasta, which is italian. this is patrick: okay, stop apologizing, okay? [ laughter ] anthony: don t get me wrong. my last name is bourdain. i lean french, hard. i am enormously sympathetic to the language laws. patrick: you don t think it s preposterous? anthony: i do not think it s preposterous. but here we have a situation.
[ laughter ] patrick: it is stupid. uh, i agree with you completely that this this province, 40 years ago, was in some respect, an english city. so we needed to have language laws for signage and stuff. anthony: now, signage, for instance, must by law be principally in french. french first in all things. patrick: but every bureaucracy produces byproducts of stupidity. and that was it. and you know what? it will not stand. anthony: the anglo-canadians treated french-speaking québécois like second-class crap for much of history. so, i get it. i d be pissed, too. i d want my own thing. and when i got it, i d want to make sure there s no backsliding to the bad old days. patrick: when the parti québécois, the first, uh, sovereignist party to be elected, was elected in 1976, it didn t come out of a vacuum. it came out from a couple of decades of awakening and struggle. anthony: 50 years from now, will people be still speaking patrick: french. anthony: predominantly
my last name is bourdain. i lean french, hard. i am enormously sympathetic to the language laws. patrick: you don t think it s preposterous? anthony: i do not think it s preposterous. but here we have a situation. [ laughter ] patrick: it is stupid. uh, i agree with you completely that this this province, 40 years ago, was in some respect, an english city. so we needed to have language laws for signage and stuff. anthony: now, signage, for instance, must by law be principally in french. french first in all things. patrick: but every bureaucracy produces byproducts of stupidity. and that was it. and you know what? it will not stand. anthony: the anglo-canadians treated french-speaking québécois like second-class crap for much of history. so, i get it. i d be pissed, too. i d want my own thing. and when i got it, i d want to make sure there s no backsliding to the bad old days. patrick: when the parti québécois, the first, uh, sovereignist party to be elected, was ele
patrick: you don t think it s preposterous? anthony: i do not think it s preposterous. but here we have a situation. [ laughter ] patrick: it is stupid. uh, i agree with you completely that this this province, 40 years ago, was in some respect, an english city. so we needed to have language laws for signage and stuff. anthony: now, signage, for instance, must by law be principally in french. french first in all things. patrick: but every bureaucracy produces byproducts of stupidity. and that was it. and you know what? it will not stand. anthony: the anglo-canadians treated french-speaking québécois like second-class crap for much of history. so, i get it. i d be pissed, too. i d want my own thing. and when i got it, i d want to make sure there s no backsliding to the bad old days. patrick: when the parti québécois, the first, uh, sovereignist party to be elected, was elected in 1976, it didn t come out of a vacuum. it came out from a couple of decades of awakening a