Francophony in Mexico and in the world

In this month of March, where International Francophonie Day is commemorated, Stéphanie Allard-Gomez talks to us about the cultural relationship between Quebec and Mexico.

Ms. Stéphanie Allard-Gomez has held the position of General Delegate of Québec in Mexico since September 25, 2017. A career diplomat, she has almost 30 years of experience in international business development, including 16 years in Europe and in Latin America. An economist by training, she has held various positions in the Canadian Diplomatic Service, notably as Ambassador in El Salvador (2006-2008), political advisor and coordinator of Canada's participation in the 2006 G8 Summit in Russia; as well as Consul and main commercial delegate in Milan (2002-2004) and Commercial Counselor and Chargé d'affaires at the Canadian Embassy in Colombia (1999-2002). Likewise, from 2008 to 2009 she held the position of director of trade relations with Latin America and the Caribbean at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Trade of Canada in Ottawa. 

In 2009, Ms. Allard-Gomez joined the Montréal International team as Vice President of International Organizations, a public-private partnership whose mission is to contribute to the economic development of Montreal. She then worked from February to August 2017 as associate vice president at Tourisme Montréal, where she was responsible for the team responsible for attracting major international events in Montreal. 

Ms. Allard-Gomez is originally from Montreal and speaks French, English, Spanish, Italian and Russian.

 

1) Based on your experience as general delegate, how would you explain the deep roots that unite Québec and Mexico?

The cultural ties that unite Québec and Mexico are rich and varied, political and diplomatic relations, both with state governments and the federal government, are sincere and constant, and economic and commercial relations are experiencing significant growth. In fact, since 2023, Mexico has become Québec's third trading partner worldwide and its most important trading partner in Latin America. There are currently around 600 Quebec companies that do business with Mexico, and 100 of them are established in the country. This is due, in part, to the presence on the territory of the General Delegation of Québec in Mexico for 44 years now and the support of Investissement Québec International. The deep ties that unite Quebec and Mexico are both historic and constantly renewed.

Now, I would like to add that our languages ​​bring us closer. In addition to the fact that both in Quebec and Mexico we have several indigenous languages ​​from which we are proud and inspired, French and Spanish are Latin languages. This shared Latinity undoubtedly makes it easier for us to create bridges, due to the mutual interest we have. Personally, it never ceases to surprise me that a Quebec artist or company performs in Mexico on average every three days. This is a very revealing statistic if we take into account that Québec is a province with nine million inhabitants, whose artists and cultural industries manage to arouse such great interest in an immense country with a population of around 130 million inhabitants.

This translates into the fact that Québec has been a guest of honor in the main festivals and large-scale cultural events in Mexico such as the Cervantino Festival, the Guadalajara International Book Fair, the May Cultural Festival, the Festival of Cinema of Guadalajara, among others.

 

2) What has been the Quebec government's strategy to promote and disseminate the French language in Mexico and Latin America?

Québec is one of the federated states with the greatest international presence in the world. Currently, Québec has 33 offices spread across 18 countries. Québec's international action rests on three main bases: economic, identity and influence diplomacy. These three pillars are interrelated and summarize our global approach to reach different parts of the world and intensify our actions where necessary. In terms of economic diplomacy, our goal is to increase Quebec exports and foreign investments in Quebec, in order to increase our collective wealth. To achieve this, we always seek to intensify our action with our privileged partners, particularly Mexico. On the other hand, to support our diplomacy of influence, our representatives around the world work to defend the interests of Québec, promote knowledge exchanges between universities and student mobility with other countries, as well as sign agreements that help us meet our labor needs, for example.

Québec is a stable, innovative, democratic, ecological and French-speaking society. Our action regarding the Francophonie is, therefore, transversal. Québec is at the heart of the French language in the Americas, and its goal is to promote it everywhere. Now, French occupies a central role in Quebec identity, it is in our DNA and in this sense, it also occupies a very important place in our identity diplomacy strategy. In fact, it is no coincidence that our ministry of international affairs also carries the word “Francophonie” within its mission and even in its name: “Ministry of International Relations and Francophonie of Québec.”

Given that Québec is the cornerstone of Francophonie in the Americas, we play a leadership role in the matter. Specifically, from the General Delegation of Québec in Mexico, we seek to promote the learning of the French language but also the values ​​of Francophonie that unite us. Which allows us to generate new collaborations in terms of labor and academic mobility, but also business and cultural projects. There are currently around 350,000 people learning French in Mexico, and we are convinced that this number can continue to increase, among others, thanks to the joint francization efforts that we carry out with key partners such as the network of French Alliances in Mexico that are present throughout the territory.

 

3) International Francophonie Day is celebrated on March 20, how do you plan to commemorate this important date?

Over the last few years, we have seen a growing interest in the Francophonie, which is why March 20 alone is not enough to highlight it. In Mexico we celebrate Francophonie throughout March!

This year we will have a rich program that will include activities that highlight the diversity and living forces of Quebec in the cultural field. The seventh art will be celebrated thanks to the ninth edition of the Quebecine festival, which once again we hope will reach nearly two thousand spectators who are fans of Quebec cinema. In addition, we will make it possible to screen Quebec films and short films at different Mexican universities.

Also, as we like to bring Francophiles together, we will organize the second edition of the Francophonie pétanque tournament in Mexico and we will make possible the recreation of a sugar cabin (“cabane à sucre” in French). This is without counting one of the most anticipated events year after year: “The Night of Poetry '', in which we will have the presence of a Quebec poet and a singer, who will be performing together with artists from different Francophonie countries.

 

4) La Francophonie proclaims among its guiding principles: Democracy and human rights; Respect and promotion of cultural and linguistic diversity; Solidarity and sustainable development. What is its scope in Mexico?

The Francophonie has 321 million speakers in the world, and 144 million people who are learning French. As I said before, in this interview, Québec's roots are deeply rooted in Mexico, and this is partly because we share two Latin languages, but also and above all because Mexico and Québec share fundamental values. Québec has been a full member of the Organization Internationale de la Francophonie (OIF) practically since its founding in 1970. For its part, Mexico has been an observer member of the OIF since 2014, that is, for 10 years now. The fact of being part of this international organization is one more example of the coincidences regarding the way in which both nations prioritize the values ​​that we want to promote.

As representatives of Quebec, we want to promote the French language, as I mentioned previously, but also democracy and human rights. Over time, the General Delegation of Québec in Mexico has developed collaborations with various organizations in Mexico in favor of human rights. In particular, since my arrival in 2017, we decided to focus an important part of our efforts on respecting and promoting the rights of members of sexual diversity. At that time, we noticed that LGBT+ associations did not yet have much support from diplomatic missions, and we decided to give them our trust, generate joint initiatives, and share Québec's good practices on this issue in which it has been a pioneer at the international level. world.

This is how we develop different collaborations with civil society organizations such as Yaaj México, with whom we organize, among others: a binational panel on the mechanisms to eliminate and prohibit so-called conversion therapies, we finance an edition of the “Fortalécete LGBT+” program dedicated to train and give professional tools to young activists of the LGBT+ community, and we contributed to the organization of the first meeting of LGBT+ political leaders in Mexico.

On the other hand, we have also developed different collaborations with government bodies such as the Council to Prevent and Eliminate Discrimination of Mexico City (COPRED) or with the sexual diversity directorate of the government of Jalisco, whom we support in the creation of a mechanism to care for victims of violence and discrimination belonging to the LGBT+ community. More recently, we were able to engage in a high-level dialogue in the Chamber of Deputies of Mexico, in the presence of our minister of international relations and Francophonie, Martine Biron.

Today, I feel very proud, because I have been able to confirm that our actions have had a concrete and unique impact on the social and legislative advances that protect people from sexual diversity in Mexico, and I am convinced that this is the best way to glimpse the scope of our actions.

 

5) In your opinion, delegate, what is the near future of relations between Québec and Mexico?

Building sustainable societies is one of our priorities, and we are committed to achieving it. Whether it is human rights, labor law or environmental protection, we actively participate in international negotiations to propose solutions to our common challenges. The USMCA is one of the tools we have at our disposal to work together and address shared challenges, and Québec is fully committed to improving and defending this international agreement.

For its part, due to the context of nearshoring, we noticed a growing interest from different Quebec companies to establish themselves in Mexico, so I imagine that, in the near future, these collaborations will be progressively consolidated. Furthermore, I believe that it is possible that relations between Québec and Mexico will develop an important focus on energy transition, the environment and electromobility. We have seen that Quebec companies that wish to establish operations in Mexico seek to do so with clean energy and energy efficiency solutions, which is why we see a possibility of increasing the presence of Quebec environmental solutions in Mexico.

Furthermore, it is important to mention that Québec is a leader with a lot of experience in these sectors. For more than 12 years, Québec has made the electrification of transportation a government priority, which has resulted in innovative measures to encourage the adoption of electric vehicles on its roads, the deployment of charging infrastructure throughout its territory and the development of a dynamic and prosperous industrial ecosystem. In fact, Quebec has the largest electric vehicle market in Canada, with more than 40% of all electric vehicles in the country.

Also in terms of charging infrastructure we are leaders within Canada and North America. There are more than 9 thousand public charging stations for electric vehicles throughout Québec, and in Montréal alone there are more than 2 thousand public charging stations. To give you an idea, this is equivalent to the total number of charging stations in all of Mexico.

We have a provincial strategy to position Quebec as the regional leader in the battery value chain, since we have experience from the extraction of critical minerals to the recycling of batteries. Therefore, we are convinced that this will also be a sector that we will be able to continue developing thanks to our historical and excellent relationship with Mexico.