March 20th is International Francophonie Day.
This annual day celebrates the French language and diverse Francophone cultures through cultural activities held worldwide.
Francophone Facts! The French presence in Ontario dates back nearly 400 years! More recently, in 2009, the adaptation of the Inclusive Definition of Francophone (IDF) added nearly 50,000 more identified Francophones. The IDF includes not only people whose mother tongue is French but also individuals whose mother tongue is neither English nor French (allophones) but who have a particular knowledge of French as an official language and use it at home. Under the IDF, a Moroccan family, for instance, that speaks Arabic and French at home is considered Francophone.
There are 13.5 million people in Ontario and 611,500 of them identify as Francophone. That’s nearly 5% of the province’s population. Meanwhile, the City of Hamilton’s Francophone population reached 6,940 people, or 2.1% of our city’s total population.
Source: Office of the French Language Services Commissioner of Ontario. https://csfontario.ca/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/2014.09.18-Francophones-in-Ontario_infographic_J.pdf
