Territorial Council meetings. Too French?
MARIGOT–Territorial Councillor for the Opposition Jules Charville said he fears St. Martiners could lose their identity if the present government continues its trend of conducting Territorial Council meetings and official functions almost entirely in French.
He suggested inhabitants of predominantly English-speaking districts such as French Quarter and Sandy Ground cannot follow the live Council debates. “A lot of us in the Council feel that segments of the population don’t understand the debates, although some of us try to speak English,” said Charville. “Article 74 talks about autonomy and the particular specifics of St. Martin, one of which is that English, a mother tongue, is spoken. In that sense English can be used, or even as an official language, however, President Daniel Gibbs says the protocol is for French to be spoken and English is secondary.
“We have to be very careful with that. It’s important our people understand what is being debated. But if we want to be French and forget who we are, I have a big problem with that.”
He cited the Sandy Ground Fête as an example where all five speeches were spoken in French. Ironically, it was the Préfecture’s Secretary-General Thierry Mahler who was the only one to speak a few sentences in English, chiefly because at the time of the same Fête last year he had just arrived on island and saw that English was being spoken and vowed to improve his language skills.
“President Gibbs has said he is thinking of asking the radio stations to get their own translators. But it should be the other way round. In my opinion the speech at the Fête given by the Second Vice-President on Gibbs’s behalf should have been repeated in English by the first Vice-President. I know that several people in the audience from Sandy Ground did not understand what was being said.”
“If we keep going down this road, it is going to affect our identity. We cannot become more French than the French. We are not Europeans, we should remain who we are. I hope this is something the government will address. I have to hand it to former Presidents Aline Hanson and Alain Richardson; they remained true to our tradition and culture which is English.”
Charville also remarked on President Gibbs’ style of governing as completely different to former Presidents.
“He is focused more on national politics, and that for the first time is having a big influence on his actions as President,” he stated. “By doing so it changes everything because national politics, when it comes to governing locally, has never been taken into account.
“He wants to run the Territorial Council like the French Parliament, everything by the book, with a strict five minute time limit to interject on agenda points. But this territory is too small for that. For years, and through the generations, politics has always been a local thing. To import the real French way of doing things is a problem in my view, and we do have a problem.”
Charville added he does not agree with the policy of excluding Councillors from sitting on committees if they are not part of those committees.
“But that is the way for younger, less experienced Councillors to learn, read, and get the experience by participating. That has always been a tradition since the time of Frantz Gumbs, Hanson and Richardson. By cutting that out, it’s killing the younger ones, even those in the majority party.”
Contacted by phone on Sunday, President Gibbs said he would not respond to Charville’s opinions.
Source: The Daily Herald https://www.thedailyherald.sx/islands/68727-charville-debates-in-french-not-understood-by-population
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