Tough, tough active politics. The premier of Quebec was re-elected at the beginning of last October. The latest Leger poll this week confirms that his party is firmly in power with 40% support.
Against all odds, and despite harsh criticism from his opponents, the Prime Minister’s popularity remained solid. He sits at the top of all politicians with 60% of Quebecers surveyed having a favorable opinion of him, which also makes him the most popular prime minister in Canada.
In other words, the popularity of François Legault does not prevent journalists from speculating on his eventual departure, from trying to find psychoanalytical explanations (long live Freud) for his nationalist impotence, his treachery as a sovereigntist and his adherence new to Justin Trudeau’s one-dimensional federalism.
The federal Prime Minister triumphs despite the minority status of his government, his marked personal setback in the polls and his general mess with the chinoiseries revealed in dribs and drabs by the English-language media.
PSPP
As for the new media darling, Paul St-Pierre Plamondon, he is obviously a classy politician. His charm, his Anglo-Saxon and European culture, unknown to ordinary mortals, currently opens the doors to the political offices of respectable European nationalists, that is to say Catalans and Scottish. Even former French President François Hollande, a politician who handles humor as well as politics and who is sensitive to Quebec’s fight for language and culture, welcomed him.
But PSPP’s trip to Europe does not alter France’s official relations with Quebec. In other words, the leader of the PQ is not the Premier of Quebec. The only official spokesperson for all Quebecers, including those Quebecers opposed to sovereignty.
Come to think of it, François Legault embodies through his person the heartbreak of Quebecers in the face of their future. Disappointed sovereigntists, psychologically injured by the two referendum defeats, personally withdrew from the debate. Their hope left them and they found other less divisive causes.
Risk
François Legault, whose naivety should not be underestimated, both a quality and a defect in politics, took a risk by dreaming of a coalition. Did he really believe that his friends in the business world would adhere to his sovereignist past? From this perspective, his adversaries are not all among the opposition MPs.
Did he have intimate knowledge of Liberal politicians? Of Justin Trudeau, transformed for years into a valiant knight of a more authoritarian, more ideological Canada with his anti-Islamophobic obsession, more intolerant of Quebec, in his eyes plagued by “systemic racism”.
So are there only francophone voters who overwhelmingly support, let’s repeat, the person of François Legault? It is sad that the power the Prime Minister wields brings him so little consolation. This is the price that any politician in Quebec must pay to exercise power in these years of turbulence, war in Europe and questioning of the very nature of power in a democracy.
It is the failures of the two referendums that are definitively inscribed in our history that make politicians who have retained a nationalist fervor despite all the scapegoats for our failures and our impotence to come.