Year 1000 scare

In the massage parlour scene, Danielle talks at length and with enthusiasm of the famous panic that hit Europe when the first millennium drew to a close. My problem is, that panic never existed, and moreover this myth had already been completely debunked a few decades *before* the movie was shot.
Yet Danielle is a history student, so she should know better - I learned that it was a myth in the 70s when I was at school. Not to mention Pierre, who is a history university professor, and yet does not object - well, actually, he had other things in his mind at the moment, so he is excused :-).
My perplexity is: why this tirade on a historical thesis that had been already rubbished? Maybe Arcand was not aware it had been refuted, but since he has a university degree in history, this does not seem too likely to me. Was he just trying to make some point about Danielle (or Pierre for that matter)? But which one? Or maybe he was using that myth because it fit well (in which sense?) in the story, reckoning that very few viewers would know it's false? But this would be intellectually dishonest. Or was he just pulling our legs?
Frankly, I am at loss.