About twenty artists in Montreal put final touches to a giant “Black Lives Matter” mural in French , painted in largest city in Canada’s Québec province.

The mural, about 100 metres long, modeled after similar efforts, notably in Washington and New York, following the death of George Floyd, an African-American who was asphyxiated by a white policeman in Minneapolis late May.

“The idea came because we saw, the first mural that was done, it was in Washington, and it immediately caught our attention as a message. It was still quite strong. And then when there had the one in front of the Trump Tower, we really found that there was a political act that was linked to this movement. Obviously racism, disparities cross borders”, said Carla Beauvais, Co-founder of the Dynasty Foundation.

The Montreal project was set up for the summer in support of the black communities and their demands. The giant letters were written in the center of the Quebec metropolis.

“I decided to choose the letter I of the word life in The life of blacks counts, I decided to represent an eye that opens because precisely as my t-shirt says, ‘‘stay woke’‘ it is a message that is important to me because it is important to stay awake, to stay alert and aware of the problems we are experiencing personally but also of the problems in society’‘, Niti Marcelle Mueth, Artistic coordinator of the project said.

Wearing a face mask, the mayor of Montreal came to see the mural and congratulated the artists.

After George Floyd’s death, tens of thousands of people demonstrated in major Canadian cities against racism and police brutality, also denouncing racial discrimination in the French-speaking province of Quebec.