Charter of the French Language Charter of the French Language The Charter of the French Language (), also known as Bill 101 ("Law 101 or "), is a 1977 law in the province of Quebec in Canada defining French, the language of the majority of the population, as the official language of the provincial government. It is the central legislative piece in Quebec's language policy. Proposed by Camille Laurin, the Minister of Cultural Development under the first Parti Québécois government of Premier René Lévesque, it was passed by the National Assembly, and granted Royal Assent by Lieutenant Governor Hugues Lapointe on August 26, 1977. The
Charter of the French Language of the OQLF was criticized by a columnist of "The Gazette" who alleged that there was a "totalitarian mindset in the bureaucracy". The columnist complained of sections of the report which described the continued prevalence of languages other than French in two-thirds of Montreal's households as an "alarming" trend that would present a formidable challenge to francophones in Montreal. In reality, the report judged alarming the fact that adoption of English as home language by allophones grew faster than the adoption of French as home language. The use of the notwithstanding clause in the 1990s to circumvent the Canadian Charter