A provocative message greeted drivers entering Montreal one morning in early December. A handful of people took to the corner of avenue de Lorimier and rue Ontario with a large banner that read, "French is dead. Welcome to MTL." The display was an apparent warning about the state of French on Montreal Island, where, census data shows, the proportion of people for whom French is the first official language spoken fell to 58.4% between 2016 and 2021.