Heather Hughson

I think that Anglo media are doing a disservice by attempting to translate the idiom into one that's still racist but not as profoundly so, rather than use the term "souche" and educate English-speakers about its etymology.

This is quite misleading and you should not be asserting it, IMO.

Why do you say that? It's always the sense that I got from colloquial use of the term, which I heard tossed about a lot while growing up.

Some meanings of souche. (tree) stump, (vine) stock; founder (of family, of race); root (in linguistics); colony or strain (of bacteria or virus); counterfoil or stub; (chimney) stack. Expressions: dormir comme une s... (sleep like a log); ...1/2

faire s... (found a line, a family, a people); mot-s... (root word); mot de s... latine (word with a Latin root); carnet à s... (counterfoil book); femme de s... européenne (woman of European origin). Souche has nothing to do with cutting down growth. 2/2

I should have added de veille souche = old stock.

Souche doesn't imply that the growth is diseased or inferior, just that it's not the original stock. I'm technically old stock Virginian (ancestors arrived in 1600s).

Correct, the literal meaning does not necessitate removal of post-Conquest identity changes, but its colloquial use by ethnic separatists (like that lady) carries implications of a need to return to pre-Conquest ethnic composition for Quebec to be "made right".

I can vividly recall my grade 5-6 French teacher regularly ranting about how those who weren't "québecois de souche" were polluting Quebec, saying they shouldn't have been allowed to vote in the Referendum because they weren't really Quebecois.