Former member of the Front de libération du Québec (FLQ), Jacques Cossette-Trudel, died of a dazzling cancer on Tuesday morning at the age of 76. “My father was an activist at heart while being super discreet, confides his daughter Marie-Ange Cossette-Trudel to the Duty. He was not a terrorist, he publicly condemned the death of Pierre Laporte. »
Originally from Shawinigan, the sovereignist activist had joined the Quebec revolutionary movement at the end of 1969 alongside his spouse at the time, Louise Lanctôt.
In September 1970, Jacques Cossette-Trudel joined the cell Release led by his brother-in-law Jacques Lanctôt. There are also Marc Carbonneau, Yves Langlois and Nigel Hamer. On the morning of October 5, the small group went into action by seizing British commercial attaché James Richard Cross at his home in Redpath Crescent Street.
The hostage was taken to 10945 rue des Récollets, in Montreal North, to an apartment rented under an assumed name by Jacques Cossette-Trudel. “He had above all a supporting role compared to others who were much more active”, explains the historian and former journalist Louis Fournier to the Duty.
Cossette-Trudel is notably responsible for distributing press releases from the unit Release and contacts with the cell Chenier of Paul Rose, whose group abducts the Quebec Minister of Labour, Pierre Laporte, from his home in Saint-Lambert, on October 10, 1970. The body of the number two in Robert Bourassa’s government will be found in the trunk of a car a week later.
Federal passage of War Measures Act increases pressure on cell Release who is struggling to pay his rent on rue des Récollets, having anticipated a quick negotiation with Ottawa. Despite the occupation of Montreal by the Canadian Armed Forces, it was through a simple police spinning operation that the FLQ hideout of Montreal North was discovered.
Exile
On December 2, 1970, Jacques Cossette-Trudel and Louise Lanctôt were arrested at the Henri-Bourassa metro station. Their hiding place in rue des Récollets was surrounded the next day, 59 days after the outbreak of the October crisis. Members of the Liberation Cell obtain safe conduct to Cuba in exchange for their hostage James Richard Cross.
Lodged in hotels on the seafront of Havana, Cossette-Trudel maintained a correspondence there with the FLquists of Algiers in the hope of joining them at the beginning of 1971. However, he turned his back on revolutionary violence in the course of the year. “In Cuba, there was a split among the exiles, recalls Louis Fournier. He decided to join the Marxist-Leninist group in struggle by Charles Gagnon.
Cossette-Trudel came to France illegally in 1974. Established in the suburbs of Paris, he held various jobs until his highly publicized return to Quebec in 1978 with Louise Lanctôt and their two children, Alexis and Marie-Ange. He was released in 1980 after serving a sentence of two years less a day for the kidnapping and forcible confinement of Cross. The retired revolutionary then embarked on a career as a screenwriter and director for documentaries related to the history of Quebec.
Controversial
Despite his discretion, Jacques Cossette-Trudel made people talk about him in 2020 during the 50e anniversary of the October Crisis by stating that his former FLQ comrade Paul Rose — who died in 2013 — had contemplated Cross’s cold-blooded execution in order to put pressure on the federal government. Cossette-Trudel said he heard this confidence from the leader of the cell Chenier during a meeting held at 6685 rue Saint-Denis, in Montreal, on October 13, 1970.
According to Cossette-Trudel, Rose made the proposal by placing a gun on a small coffee table to make herself understood. This version of the facts had however been disputed by Louise Verreault, the only other witness to the scene. The last two survivors of the cell ChenierJacques Rose and Bernard Lortie, had also questioned its veracity in an exclusive interview with The duty.
Cossette-Trudel had nevertheless maintained his version of the facts, including the presence of the famous revolver which would however have been thrown into the St. Lawrence River before the outbreak of the October crisis according to Jacques Rose. “I repeat, I am a witness, before supported Cossette-Trudel, I heard it [Paul Rose], I am a protagonist unlike many people who are not and who have an opinion. »
The former felquiste had also confided his wish to no longer be associated with the assassination of Minister Pierre Laporte. “I’m tired of being told, ‘ah yes, the FLQ, the guys who killed Laporte’ and then I’m always forced to say ‘well no, not me, I was in the other cell with the English, there, we didn’t kill anyone”. All my life I’ve dragged it around and I haven’t gotten any glory out of it. »