Legault to address UNESCO on Thursday

Photo: Jacques Demarthon Archives Agence France-Presse UNESCO is the only major international organization where Quebec has a representative under an agreement concluded with Ottawa on May 5, 2006.

For the first time in history, a Quebec premier will address the assembly of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) on Thursday. François Legault will deliver a ten-minute speech to representatives of more than 80 permanent delegations, including some fifty ambassadors.

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After meeting with the Director General of the organization that brings together 194 states, Mr. Legault intends to plead in favour of defending linguistic pluralism in a digital world that is most often dominated by English.

With the exception of the International Organization of La Francophonie (OIF), UNESCO is the only major international organization where Quebec has a representative under an agreement concluded with Ottawa on May 5, 2006. Unlike the OIF, where Quebec is a full member, Quebec’s representative to UNESCO, Catherine Cano, occupies an office within the Canadian delegation.

It must be said that Quebec, along with France and Canada, played a major role in the early 2000s in convincing UNESCO member countries to adopt the 2005 Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions. The Prime Minister’s intervention is part of Quebec and France’s desire to amend this convention so that it takes into account the digital world. A subject on which Quebec is at the forefront and which it has also managed to impose as a topic of debate at the OIF summit to be held on October 4 and 5 in Villers-Cotterêts and Paris.