This summer, René Lévesque would have been 100 years old. Until August 24th, anniversary date, The duty highlights on all its platforms the memory of the founder of the Parti Québécois, one of the most great prime ministers in the history of Quebec, with René Lévesque’s 100 years series.
“Baptism, how fast! According to his friend Yves Michaud, it is with these words full of caution that René Lévesque would have welcomed the words of General Charles de Gaulle pronounced from the top of the balcony of Montreal City Hall on a certain July 24, 1967. We do not provoke not easily match the enthusiasm of the man who was about to leave the Liberal Party to found the Movement Sovereignty-Association, which would later give birth to the Parti Québécois.
“If Lévesque then feels uneasy, it’s not so much because of what de Gaulle says, because he doesn’t want to be pushed around,” says the former Minister of International Relations and Culture Louise Beaudoin. “He wanted to follow his own path and not seem to be following anyone. » In his chronicle of the Sunday morning, he will also salute Charles de Gaulle with these words: “Vive de Gaulle – and first of all for ourselves.” »
Later, he will specify that this “tremendous injection of pride” will have paradoxically had the effect of delaying his approach, so as not to appear “attached to this intervention from outside”.
It must be said that, unlike many sovereignists of that time who often studied in Paris, the former journalist has a distinctly American tropism. His classes, he did as a war reporter in the US army. Not to mention that he is an unconditional admirer of Roosevelt. However, the father of the New Deal always preferred to trust Vichy rather than the leader of Free France, who was too rebellious for Washington’s taste. This is perhaps why, upon his election in 1976, it was not in Paris, but at the door of the Economic Club of New York, that the new PQ premier would first knock. No matter how much he invoked the American Revolutionary War, the reaction was icy.
On the eve of the 1980 referendum, it was therefore important to react quickly in order to show that Quebec was not totally isolated in the world. And who else but France could we appeal to? As early as 1972, with Bernard Landry and Louise Beaudoin, the leader of the PQ had forged links there both on the right and on the left. He even returned to it by speaking for the first time of Quebec as “a human extension of France”, underlines Louise Beaudoin.
A triumph
But it was in 1977 that everything happened. It will be a real “triumph”, writes the historian Frédéric Bastien in Special relationships. France facing Quebec after de Gaulle (Boreal). Received as Head of State from November 2 to 4, to the great displeasure of Ottawa, René Lévesque will be received at the Élysée and will deliver a remarkable speech to representatives of the National Assembly. He was even made a Grand Officer of the Legion of Honor, a distinction that had not been awarded to any Canadian statesman since Wilfrid Laurier in 1897.
However, nothing was won. After De Gaulle’s visit to Quebec, didn’t Valéry Giscard d’Estaing (VGE) denounce “the solitary exercise of power”? Everything should normally bring this fervent European federalist closer to Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau. But even without de Gaulle, Gaullism nevertheless proved to be the strongest.
Around VGE, we find its representative for Quebec, Alain Peyrefitte, and the faithful Bernard Dorin. For these pioneers of France’s openness to Quebec, the election of a sovereignist prime minister is only the culmination of the emancipation movement that is shaking the province and that they have accompanied for two decades.
“I believe that VGE was sincerely convinced,” says Louise Beaudoin. Because, during this visit, René Lévesque literally seduced the French. He tells them our story, which is also theirs until 1763, and it works! Panicked, Gérard Pelletier, then Canada’s ambassador to Paris, even took the trouble to call a press conference. Never seen.
The French press is largely favorable to Quebec. Unthinkable today, during his entire visit, René Lévesque made the front page of the daily The world. “The feeling of estrangement has given way, in the relations between the two peoples, to that of kinship – and therefore, quite naturally, of solidarity”, wrote its editor-in-chief, André Fontaine.
It was during this visit that the so-called doctrine of “non-interference and non-indifference” will be inscribed in stone, in the words of Alain Peyrefitte.
“You will determine yourself, without interference, the path of your future,” said the president. You have the right and you have the ability. What you expect from France — I know this from having lived among you — is her understanding, her confidence and her support. You can count on them not being missed along the route you decide to follow. »
Thus was fixed the policy which will be taken up with nuances from Valéry Giscard d’Estaing to François Hollande. Even François Mitterrand will end up rallying behind it. Only Nicolas Sarkozy will refuse, in 2008, to use the terms.
It was also in 1977 that alternate annual visits by the French and Quebec Prime Ministers were instituted, one of the architects of which was Pierre-André Wiltzer, Chief of Staff to Prime Minister Raymond Barre. “Except to recognize Quebec as a sovereign state, it is difficult to see how France could have gone further,” notes American diplomacy in a report cited by Jean-François Lisée.
It is in the ordeal, they say, that one recognizes one’s true friends. René Lévesque will make his second official visit to France just seven months after the failure of the 1980 referendum. If the disappointment could be read on people’s faces, Prime Minister Raymond Barre remained straight in his boots. “None of your efforts to assert the personality of Quebec can leave France indifferent,” he said.
Less than a year later, Lévesque will face François Mitterrand, one of the only French politicians to have never fallen under his messy spell. But personalities of the size of Michel Rocard, Jean-Pierre Chevènement and Hubert Védrine watched over the grain. So much so that once elected, after many hesitations and without entirely repeating the same formulation, Mitterrand will finally wedge himself into the Gaullist doctrine as he had accommodated himself to the clothes of the V.e Republic. Its support will also be decisive in securing a seat in Quebec at the Organization internationale de la Francophonie.
Mauroy’s friend
It was then that René Lévesque forged a true friendship with Pierre Mauroy. Under the spell, the socialist Prime Minister had not hesitated to sing with the crowd “My dear René, it’s your turn…” while he was visiting Saguenay.
It was love at first sight, says Beaudoin. “Lévesque loved this pragmatic socialist, who like him came from a popular background and who did not have the manners of the 7e borough ; he found himself in his way of being. The two men will even be able to have harsh words on occasion, without that tarnishing their friendship.
In 1985, it will be the farewell visit. Everyone knew that Lévesque was about to leave. It was also a great opportunity to mark 20 years of France-Quebec cooperation. General Delegate in Paris, Louise Beaudoin is worried. Especially since the young Prime Minister Laurent Fabius, looking like an aristocrat, does not really seem tailor-made for an increasingly unpredictable Lévesque. However, the magic works; it is even Fabius who will save the Consulate General of France in Quebec, whose existence was called into question. As Louise Beaudoin says: “Everyone ended up succumbing to his charm. »
Everybody ? At his funeral, in the small cemetery of Sillery, the “American friends” did not come. Even the governors of neighboring states are absent. The only foreign delegation will be that of France; it will be made up of two former prime ministers, Jacques Chaban-Delmas and Pierre Mauroy, as well as Xavier Deniau.
It was the latter who, in 1967, had submitted to de Gaulle the idea that, to avoid going through Ottawa, he could come by boat. Where it all started.