Dear editor,


We are former and current Concordia students. We used to be active members of the French-language student newspaper Concordia Français. We have to speak up regarding what we see as a breach of trust, which completely undermines the founding principles of the newspaper, between the current executive, the Concordia student community and those who worked so hard to create Concordia's first French-language newspaper.

Concordia Français was founded in 2002. It was intended to be a space for debate and creation, free of publicity and dedicated to be a forum for expression for francophones and francophiles from all horizons studying at Concordia. By that logic, in the November 2003 CSU referendum it was awarded a fee-levy of 6 cents per credit by the student community. This amounts to more than $50,000 a year.

Recently, the current administration of the paper undertook major changes that make it radically different. These changes break the spirit of the contract between Concordia Français and the student community, as voted in 2003.

The newspaper administration, claiming to be "cash-strapped,” rescinded their commitment to be advertisement-free and is now actively seeking advertising revenues to which it is ready to dedicate an important space of the publication.

They have now gone so far as to compromise Concordia Français' raison d'être, effectively putting an end to Concordia's only French-language student media. It changed the name of the publication to l’Organe as a question of marketing. l'Organe is now branded as "bilingual" and includes a significant portion of English-language articles, despite the existence of many unilingual English-language student publications on campus.

We ask why the $50,000-plus fee-levy is not enough for a paper that used to be made for $6,000 a year by exclusively voluntary unpaid students? We ask what is the purpose of this paper now that it tries to become what already exists in terms of student medium at Concordia?

We ask the students to remind the current newspaper administration that it is accountable to them by requesting a general assembly of the Concordia Français, whereupon the it should be summoned to get back to its original mission: providing a French, publicity-free student media. Should the current administration refuse, we will ask the students to reject the fee levy. Let them survive on publicity and off-campus sponsors.

We also want to remind the students that their contribution of 6 cents per credit is totally refundable upon request to the Société de publication du Concordia Français. You are under no obligation to finance this waste.


La liberté de le dire!


Jean-Sebastien Levesque