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You know, now there is always half of the new Quebecers who are going to the English CEGEP. After that, often they are going to work in English. So for us, that is so important. We are a real minority in North America. Two per cent of the population are French-speaking. We have to protect this reality.

Attempting to build a language wall around Quebec is precisely the wrong policy to follow. It will keep out of Quebec exactly what we need to attract by way of talent and capital; it will drive our best - francophones as well as allophones and anglophones, with their talents and capital - to leave Quebec.

I can't think of this country without Quebec. Je parle francais. And when I think about being a Canadian, speaking French is part of it.

In the province of Quebec where I come from, we speak French, and the only cosmopolitan city is Montreal. Every time we tackle the subject of immigration and racial tension, it's an issue that concerns Montreal.

You know, I would like to ask to the other parts of Canada to respect the minority of the French Canadians.

People forget that there are villages and communities that are still speaking French all over Canada. I went to a bar and spoke with some French people there, and they were saying: 'I went to English school, but at home it was always French, and that's going to be the way it is for my kids.' It's important for them to keep that language alive.

The anglophones are Quebecers, as are the French, as are the new Quebecers.

We can make the United States a 'Hispanic Quebec' without much effort. The key is to celebrate diversity rather than unity.

My wife and I have spent most of our lives in France, and we are both pretty well bilingual, my wife more purely than I, since as a little girl she went to school in French Switzerland.

I want to tell Quebecers that are listening: if you want to get back to the goal of creating a country, only a majority government can do it, a sovereigntist government of the Parti Quebecois.