The legacy of René Lévesque is so imposing that it allows everyone these weeks to claim a fragment of the True Cross. Everyone, indeed, draws from his life and his work a little of this and less of that, as the 100e birthday of this larger than life man. Which makes some say that on the national question he would have been here, while on the left-right axis he would have been there. Not to mention a topical “elsewhere”. In fact, since 1er November 1987, date of his death, no one can answer with certainty the question “what would René Lévesque think of it today?” “.
Posted at 11:00 a.m.
Despite everything, I in turn undertake to lend myself to the game of analysis, but in a slightly different way since I want to come back to a particular aspect of its international action: its relationship with France. It’s a story that starts badly, but ends well and which, above all, has left indelible marks.
Before creating the Parti Québécois (PQ) in 1968 and becoming its leader, René Lévesque had a complex relationship with France. He had first known them, in his early twenties, as a war reporter incorporated in the American army, the ruins of the battlefields, the posturing of the IVe republic, the colonial policy, especially the dirty war waged in Algeria, which he had denounced to focus. Even General de Gaulle’s visit in July 1967 had caused him some discomfort, because it seemed to him that such support for Quebec independence should not precede the choice of Quebecers themselves.
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René Lévesque first came to know France as a war reporter incorporated into the American army.
Moreover, René Lévesque was an unconditional admirer of American President Franklin D. Roosevelt and his New Deal. In short, his eyes and his interests were turned towards the United States rather than towards France. Everything began to change during his first official trip as leader of the PQ in 1972. “Quebec is indeed the human extension of France,” he wrote, on his return, in one of his chronicles of the Montreal Journal. He understood at that time that Quebec could not have a surer and more active political ally than France. Especially since he had assured himself by meeting the first secretary of the Socialist Party, François Mitterrand (who would become president in 1981), and Michel Rocard, future prime minister, of a certain left-right consensus in relation to Quebec.
He made his first trip to France as Prime Minister in 1977 (there were three more). The mission will be triumphant despite the unfailing zeal of Canada and its ambassador in Paris, Gérard Pelletier, to put a spoke in the wheel.
On this occasion, René Lévesque will agree with his counterpart Raymond Barre on alternating visits between Quebec and French prime ministers which will resume soon, after a “pandemic” parenthesis. Meetings whose importance in today’s world cannot be denied, unique in their kind in the political history of Quebec. Made possible by this direct and privileged relationship imagined and materialized, in large part, by René Lévesque. It is thanks to the latter that Quebec was able to play a significant role in the adoption by UNESCO, in 2005, of “the Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions”. Which makes it possible, in fact, to exclude culture from free trade agreements… for the States which so decide. Today, this fight, in collaboration with France, continues in other forms: the visibility of French-speaking content on the major American platforms, linguistic diversity, the taxation of GAFAM, etc., problems which must urgently be found. solutions, as Alain Saulnier explains in his book The digital barbarians.
The other great legacy of Franco-Quebec relations under René Lévesque concerns Quebec’s place at the Summits of La Francophonie.
It is because René Lévesque stood up to Pierre Elliott Trudeau and literally saved the day at a critical moment in the negotiations in the early 1980s, thanks to the support of France, that Quebec plays a role commensurate with its Francophone ambitions in the world at each Summit. At the first of these meetings, in Versailles in 1986, Robert Bourassa went as far, or even further, than allowed by the agreement signed by Quebec in 1985 with Brian Mulroney. Since that day, each premier of Quebec has left its mark, including François Legault.
In closing, let us simply recall that the only foreign dignitaries present at the national funeral of Mr. Lévesque, held at the basilica of Quebec, were French, led by the President of the National Assembly, Jacques Chaban-Delmas. Among the delegation accompanying him was Pierre Mauroy, former Socialist Prime Minister, who, he said at the time, would not have missed this last farewell to “his friend Lévesque” for anything in the world.