Opération McGill français

L’Opération McGill, now known as McGill français, was an activist movement that culminated in a major demonstration in Montreal on the evening and night of 28 March 1969. The newspapers at the time estimated that the event brought 6,000 to 15,000 people out into the street. The march ended at the Roddick Gates of McGill University. Though peaceful at first, the demonstration led to confrontations with Montreal’s riot police. The goal of the movement was to pressure the university to decolonize itself and become a French-language university whose primary purpose would be to foster the economic development of the francophone majority population of Quebec. Although this goal was not achieved, the founding of the Université du Québec system in December 1968 led to the creation of a network of French-language public universities throughout the province in the ensuing years (see Université du Québec à Montréal). L’Opération McGill français is thus remembered as one of the key events in the social and political movements that constituted the Quiet Revolution.

Background

The demonstration on 28 March 1969 was the culmination of at least two years of activism by Stanley Gray, a lecturer in the political science department at McGill who wanted the university to become more open to Quebec society. In the mid-1960s, only 7% of McGill students had French as their mother tongue, which made the university a largely anglophone institution out of step with the major social changes that were happening in Quebec. On 23 November 1967, Gray founded an organization called Students for a Democratic University (SDU), with about 150 members, to draw attention to this issue. To present their demands to McGill’s administration, Gray and the SDU interrupted a meeting of the university’s Senate on 24 January 1969 and a meeting of its Board of Governors three days later. As a result of his activism, Stanley Gray lost his job at the university, but he nevertheless intensified his efforts to make McGill a French-language institution.

Raymond Lemieux was another important figure in this movement. He had become actively involved in the efforts to protect French during the crisis over the language of instruction in the schools of Saint-Léonard, Quebec, in 1967 and 1968. In early 1969, Lemieux joined Stanley Gray in forming a protest movement to demand that the administration of McGill University francisize their institution. Several months of work and a wide variety of organizations were involved in organizing the 28 March demonstration. It included people who had participated in the public debates over the Saint-Léonard schools, CEGEP students, and labour unions.

Did you know?
Some of the people who organized and participated in the movement demanding that McGill University become a francophone institution were anglophone themselves, including its main leader, Stanley Gray.

One major source of the pressures leading to the McGill français movement was the lack of space at the Université de Montréal to accommodate all of the francophone students graduating from the newly established CEGEPs. The CEGEP system was created in August 1967, and its first graduating class was scheduled to enter university in the fall of 1969. At a conference held by the department of education at Université Laval at this time, it was estimated that about 40% of this graduating class would be refused admission to university, simply for lack of room. At the time, there was only one francophone university in Montreal. This situation partly explains why so many CEGEP students participated in the demonstration at McGill University on 28 March.

The key demands of the Opération McGill activists essentially sought to rapidly francisize the university through stronger representation of francophones both in the student body and among research and teaching faculty. The objective was to make McGill University a tuition-free francophone institution at the service of the Quebec nation, understood as a French-speaking people.

The Day of the Demonstration

The McGill français demonstrators began assembling in Montreal’s Saint Louis Square at about 7:00 p.m. on 28 March 1969. Around 8:30 p.m., the group moved westward down Sherbrooke Street to demonstrate in front of the Roddick Gates, the main entrance to McGill University. Earlier that afternoon, a crowd had already assembled near the university entrance, although the police had blocked access to the campus to anyone who did not have permission to enter. McGill’s administration had asked the police for help in preparing for the demonstration, which had been announced long in advance.

During the days preceding the demonstration, Montreal’s chief of police, Jean-Paul Gilbert, appeared in the newspapers to explain that the police were well prepared to protect the university. More than a thousand Montreal police officers, supported by a security service and officers of the Quebec Provincial Police, were on duty the evening of 28 March to contain the demonstration. The police were posted on campus and in front of the Roddick Gates. The campus was also lit up with spotlights throughout the night.

The demonstration lasted about two hours. There were speeches in favour of the effort to francisize McGill. Several statements were also made in favour of the independence of Quebec and of the working class (see Social Class). A small group of counter-demonstrators confronted the demonstrators and mocked them, some singing God Save the Queen.

The demonstration remained peaceful until about 10:00 p.m., when the police dispersed the crowd in front of the campus. Fighting then broke out between some demonstrators and counter-demonstrators. Acts of vandalism in the surrounding streets were reported until about midnight. In the end, 41 people were arrested. A number of 18 people, including 6 police officers, suffered minor injuries.

Aftermath

In contrast to the Sir George Williams Affair in January 1969, Opération McGill français had limited consequences. The demonstration did not lead to the occupation of the university or obtain the support of the Parti Québécois, which was a new political party at the time. An attempt to hold a similar demonstration at Bishop’s University the following year ended in failure, and McGill never became a francophone university.

McGill did, however, introduce some changes following the demonstration. In particular, the university administration agreed to admit more francophone students and to hire more francophone professors.

Today, about 20% of McGill students have French as their mother tongue, and the majority of McGill’s anglophone students from Quebec are bilingual (English and French).