I came across an article in the Montréal edition of the 24 Heures newspaper about an event called la Chasse-Balcon.
Every Friday, a group of musicians come together on the balcony of a different residence to play traditional music for people to come listen and dance to. If you’re interested, there’s a Facebook page for la Chasse-Balcon, and the Chasse-Balcon website is here.
In the 24 Heures article, the organiser of the event (Catherine Planet) is quoted as saying:
On réussit à faire danser tout le monde, je me suis rendu compte qu’un paquet de gens voulait ça.
[Source: «Entrez dans la danse» (Camille Dufétel), 24 Heures Montréal, 13-15 mai 2016, vol. 16, no. 44, p. W20.]
In English: We get everybody dancing [at the Chasse-Balcon events]; I realised that a whole bunch of people wanted it.
Un paquet de gens is a whole bunch of people, loads of people, etc. More generally, un paquet de can be used with anything of which there’s an abundance.
- un paquet de monde, un paquet de gens, loads of people
- un paquet de problèmes, a bunch of problems
- pour un paquet de raisons, for a whole bunch of reasons
- dire un paquet de niaiseries, to say all kinds of stupid things
- faire un paquet de commentaires négatifs, to make all kinds of negative comments
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The OffQc book C’est what? will help you get your bearings in the colloquial variety of French spoken in Québec and pave the way for further independent study. You can buy and download it here.
I would say: une foule de personnes. À moins d’avoir l’habitude d’interpeler les gens ainsi: ” aie chose!” Je préfère parler de foule et non de paquets…😉