Francophone Fridays: Charlottetown coffee shop starts weekly French gathering

A coffee shop in downtown Charlottetown has begun hosting a gathering of French-speakers every Friday, after the owner noticed an increasing number of Francophones on P.E.I. from a variety of countries.

Timothy's owner Campbell Webster said the coffee shop already had a large number of French speakers coming in from Veterans Affairs.

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"We noticed actually one day that there was a fairly significant new number of Belgians moving to Prince Edward Island," he told CBC's Island Morning. The shopstarted hosting the event two weeks ago.

Webster said the gathering, which includes seafood and live music, is open to Francophonesor people who just want to practise their French.

'A little community hub'

The event is presentedeach week by Carrefour de L'Isle-Saint-Jean, a community organization witha mandate to allowpeople to socialize in French.Executive director Nathalie Arsenault said they have evening events at their Acadian Drive location, but they wanted to hold more events downtown.

"It's very informal. You can have a space where you know there will be other Francophones there, meet your friends, really make it like a little community hub is sort of what we're hoping," she said. "It's going to hopefully build over time."

A promotional videoabout the gathering has had more than 18,000 Facebook views in the last two weeks.

"There's this buzz, I think, that people want this," Arsenault said.

Webster says they plan to continue the gatherings until at least March.

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