François Legault, we know, is going around in circles. He has lost his nationalist compass, as if he was reluctantly playing the role of a grumpy federalist.
Can he find her?
He could do it if he read The return of the blues, the remarkable work of Étienne-Alexandre Beauregard (EAB), one of the most brilliant intellectuals of his generation (he is barely 22 years old) and who, after a stint in the PQ, joined the CAQ and became one of his companions road and collaborated with him.
Étienne-Alexandre Beauregard, essayist and author of Le Retour des Bleus.
Photo taken from Étienne-Alexandre Beauregard’s LinkedIn
In this book, EAB offers a rereading of our political-intellectual history. He distinguishes two major poles, the blue and the red.
Blues
Schematically, we would say that the blues are attached to the historical continuity of the Quebec people, while the reds are obsessed with a quest for modernity that has never been satisfied.
The blues have a sense of collective identity and want the State to ensure its promotion. The Reds fear that the collective will crush the individual.
Why is EAB talking about the return of the blues?
Because the conservative dimension of nationalism is no longer seen as a defect, whereas it was in the dynamics of the Quiet Revolution, crossed, we can understand, by a desire for social liberation.
This tradition, according to EAB, which dates back to François-Xavier Garneau, passes through Groulx, Duplessis and Lévesque, and is today carried politically by François Legault.
Conservative nationalism is back with the question of identity (Quebec identity or multiculturalism), which replaced the question of the political status of Quebec (sovereignty or federalism) after the last referendum, when it was necessary to think about Quebec’s affirmation in a context which was that of a historic cul-de-sac.
The fight for secularism, that for the French language, resistance to wokism and multiculturalism are at the heart of this renewed nationalism.
This analysis, however, finds its limits in the objective evolution of the political situation.
Nationalism can only be rhetoric. He cannot be satisfied with “concrete gains” which on a historical scale seem childish when we know that Quebec is condemned to demographic drowning in Canada.
Autonomism has reached its limits.
We come back to Return of the blues of Beauregard.
EAB’s erudition is breathtaking, his analytical power exceptional. He is right to detach nationalism from a progressivism that often hinders it.
Perhaps in a future book he will be led to analyze the present historical moment, that of the return to the sovereignist-federalist divide. Because the question of Quebec’s place is not an ideological feeling: it is brought to our attention by reality.
I said that François Legault should read it. In fact, he read it, and thought good things about it.
Autonomism
It remains for him to draw some political consequences.
When he says that Canada is condemning us to “Louisianization” with its insane immigration policy, he is speaking the truth.
But it is not enough to send a letter of protest to Ottawa.
We must draw a real conclusion from this. We know her.
EAB could remind him.