The announcement of the death of author, journalist and essayist Denise Bombardier had the effect of a bomb for Prime Minister François Legault. The politician paid tribute to him in an interview with TVA Nouvelles 5 p.m.
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“I met Denise just two months ago. She seemed in good shape, full of energy, and besides, it’s like the opposite of Denise Bombardier to know that she died. She was a woman who had the joy of living, so indeed [c’est] sad news,” he recalled.
The Prime Minister liked to debate and discuss with the Quebec columnist, while his discussions were always done with respect for others.
“She was really a woman who liked to have fun, an extremely intelligent woman [même] if it was always full-bodied when we had discussions”, he mentioned in an exclusive interview with Paul Larocque.
Asked about the many facets of Denise Bombardier’s unique personality, François Legault wanted to highlight her contribution to public debate both in Quebec and in France.
“She was able to reach the people, even if she was a great intellectual […] she was able to write in The Journal of Montrealand to join the people”, he said, underlining his remarkable passage on the Bernard Pivot show, where she had castigated the practices of a “pedophile” writer.
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Politically, the Quebec politician was in agreement with many of the positions of the journalist and author.
“We came together a lot, among other things on Quebec, on nationalism, the integration of new immigrants. For her, we should not be embarrassed to demand that newcomers speak French, adopt our values. So she took full responsibility, even if sometimes it displeased a lot of people, ”underlines the head of the Quebec government.
Called to pay tribute to the person that was Denise Bombardier, the Prime Minister wants Quebecers to remember her as an “exceptionally brilliant woman”.
Photo archives, Chantal Poirier
“Really [elle était] very, very above average. A woman, too, who was funny, who was able to have fun in life. Then [c’était] a great lover of the French language and of Quebec,” he confided, calling for the public figure to be immortalized.
“We are going to look at how we can remember, all Quebecers, this great Quebecer.”
*Watch the full interview with François Legault in the video above*