2023-11-20 16:37:30
Marc-Antoine Dequoy went viral after the Alouettes’ victory thanks to a vibrant plea on the use of the French language at the Cup and he maintained his remarks Monday morning.
The team arrived in Mirabel from Hamilton barely a dozen hours after winning its first Gray Cup since 2010 and Dequoy was calmer.
During an interview with RDS shortly after the victory, the defensive back decried the absence of French during Gray Cup week did not back down on his comments, only clarifying his thoughts.
“After a victory like that, you have to understand where I come from. I watched the Alouettes growing up, it was a childhood dream. The emotion that takes hold of you is so enormous.
Bilingual, but…
“The reality is that the CFL is a bilingual league, Canada is a bilingual country, but I find that there was a bit of a lack of respect for the French language during the week.
“Just during the game we played in Toronto [en demi-finale], the national anthem was only in English. For me, this message was just to tell them that they could keep the language [de communication] in English. It was nothing against the English-speaking community. I speak in English every day of my life, football is an English-speaking sport. I get corrected all the time because I make a lot of anglicisms.
Dequoy insisted that this was not an attack on the country’s English speakers.
“Anyone who knows me knows there was no malice, it was emotion that took hold of me. You can really see a young man full of emotions who is just happy to celebrate and who is told afterwards, you should have calmed down,” he admitted with a laugh.
Message
The timing was perhaps oddly chosen, but as Dequoy mentioned, he let himself be carried away by his emotions and his flight should not camouflage the message he wanted to convey.
“It was a little awkward, but it’s not that bad. The message was really that I found that there was a lack of respect for the French language and you know what the difficulties of maintaining this language are.”
His momentum has generally been well received and that’s a good sign in his eyes.
“I saw that a lot of people were attached to that and it shows that the pride of the Quebec people is sometimes intense.”
It was pointed out to him that the team’s owner, Pierre Karl Péladeau, was once leader of the Parti Québécois, but the two men did not discuss Dequoy’s statements.
“The video went viral after we left. I think he asked me to become Minister of the French Language,” he joked.
Culture
There has been a lot of talk about the space given to French at the Sparrows this season and assistant coach Luc Brodeur-Jourdain explained that it is more than a company culture.
“It goes beyond having Quebec players, what is encouraged is to speak French, to know Quebec culture, to explore and discover Montreal, to go to the South Shore or the North Shore.
“We spend a moment of life together which lasts eight or nine months, we want to show them Quebec, to see its dynamics and not only to play football matches and return home.”
The players embraced the idea and were even stimulated in various ways.
“We had exams on Duolingo, players had to know their number in French, had to be able to introduce themselves and know a few polite words and it’s fun to see how much this was encouraged by Jason [Maas, l’entraîneur-chef]», explains Broudeur-Jourdain.
Watch in the video above.
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