No Pasarán
The last bit of class was a rush. I was considerably more worried about this, the second of four sessions [[1]], than the first one. A metric fuckton more grammar and there was less oral practice than the first session.
You are expected to be competent at passé composé ("I went to the store"), the imparfait ("When I was young"), the gerondif ("Whilst walking" or "On leaving the store") and most of the pronouns ("They went there", "I gave it to him") [[2]].
But before les examens, which I managed to pass, incidentally, we had a couple of nice field trips. The first was to Chateau Ramezay, a museum that gives off some Colonial Williamsburg vibes.
Two callouts, (1) I adore the circa 1970s typography on the "Commission Des Monuments Historiques" and (2) the statue to Jean Vauquielin, a French military commander whose bravery during the Seven Years War so impressed the British that they repatriated him after capture almost instantly.
The other big thing was the picnic, which involved the entire french language program at UQAM.
There was a scavenger-hunt-style activity that involved taking pictures of various local animals (Alexandra trying to get a good one of the squirrel) the non-profit restaurant with ice skating on the roof during the winter, and a bike rental/cafe place with some eclectic artwork.
Veering into politics for a moment, the French electoral system is wild. Because of the huge number of French nationals in Quebec - and how close the election was to putting the far right in power - in a lot of public places one could see posters for the Nouveau Front Populaire [[3]] spring up almost overnight.
Worth noting the inclusive language « les francais.e.s » which is a gender-neutral form apparently frowned upon in France itself outside the left (for being a perversion of the language or some silliness) and is, I believe, legally required in Quebec for public communications by the government.
Anyway it went well, which is crazy to consider because they had something like three weeks to get organized. It's actually rarely "too late" to put together a popular project, as long as you do it before an election. The "new" part of Nouveau Front Popular isn't a joke, they basically didn't exist before June 10th.
"No Pasarán" is the phrase used by volunteers in the Spanish Civil War fighting against fascism. It roughly translates to "no passage" or closer to "you shall not pass" and is most closely associated with the heroic defense of Madrid early in the conflict. A testament to the fact good left wing organizing is international.
It's important to understand how fascism is almost purpose-built to destroy liberal democracies. They will happily harness the institutionalized revulsion to left wing politics by liberals and business interests while redirecting the anger and alienation of the downtrodden masses toward whatever minorities are most convenient - Jews, immigrants, etc.
When they fail, historically it's because of a powerful left aligning with reluctant liberals [[4]] - the alliance of labor and the Democratic Party under FDR is an illustrative example. When fascists succeed, it's often a result of the center punching left as hard as possible and aligning with the right [[5]]. Something to keep in mind when liberal parties spend considerable effort to defeat left wing candidates [[6]] and break strikes while proudly describing their collaboration and comradery with the far right and routinely adopting their stances.
Anyway, genuine question: what is a « zouizoui » ?
Finally, dog.
[[1]]: Each session is 11 weeks, the full course is a year long. Still on the fence on going for the whole thing or switching to part time
[[2]]: Can you believe they have pronouns in the schools now etc
[[3]]: A coalition of left leaning political parties that ended up with the most seats in the National Assembly
[[4]]: Macron's liberal party both stopped competing in a bunch of places to help the left win in three-way ties AND criticized them for not being sufficiently anti-immigrant and transphobic
[[5]]: Another example would be the Spanish Civil War itself, wherein liberal democracies had a non-interventionist stance while Nazi Germany happily ferried the cream of the Spanish Nationalist army over from Africa
[[6]]: Not limited to this side of the Atlantic of course. Labour deselected Jeremy Corbyn, though he went on to crush their hand picked candidate
