This summer, René Lévesque would have been 100 years old. On this Wednesday, August 24, anniversary date, The duty highlights on all its platforms the memory of the founder of the Parti Québécois, one of the greatest prime ministers in the history of Quebec, with the 100 years series by René Lévesque.
Impossible to understand the statesman that was René Lévesque without dwelling on the journalist that he was before. The intrepid war correspondent and talented pedagogue of focus marked the spirits. But we forget how, in circles of power, he was already disturbing for his rebellious side and his sometimes unorthodox style. The prelude finally of what will be his political career.
An anecdote found in his memoirs, published in 1986, perfectly illustrates how René Lévesque was able to annoy throughout his career as a journalist, to the point of being subjected to censorship. In Wait until I remember…, René Lévesque recounts having been sent to the Soviet Union in 1955, shortly after Stalin’s death, to follow the visit of Lester B. Pearson, then Canadian Minister of External Affairs. Lévesque says he witnessed during this trip a series of humiliations inflicted by Khrushchev, the new strongman of Moscow, on Pearson and the Canadian diplomats who accompanied him.
In his reports, René Lévesque recounts how Pearson did not know what to say when Khrushchev called Canada an “American colony” and when he questioned the relevance of NATO. Then he recounts how the Soviets came up with a whole scheme at an official dinner in Yalta to piss off diplomat George Ignatieff, the father of future Liberal Party leader Michael Ignatieff, a white Russian naturalized Canadian who had obviously been taken aback by the Communists in the Kremlin.
Lévesque returns in his memoirs to the heavy atmosphere that weighed on the Canadian delegation after the Yalta dinner, taking malicious pleasure in dismantling the legend of the creator of the Blue Helmets, Prime Minister from 1963 to 1968. so massacring that we could have feared for our visas. This return [à Moscou] also allowed us to note that under the childish half-smile and the undeniable skill of the diplomat hid a very bad character that the slightest annoyance pushed to grumbling and acerbic words”, writes Lévesque.
However, what he describes as “the most flamboyant scoop of his career”, Radio-Canada listeners knew nothing about it. Upon his arrival in Montreal, René Lévesque learned to his great astonishment that his reports had not been broadcast at the express request of the Department of External Affairs, he said. A scoop “muffled by the beautiful eyes of Lester Pearson”, which he did not carry in his heart. “It was enough to become…separatist”, adds, not without humour, René Lévesque at the end of the chapter devoted to this episode.
Feared by Duplessis
Already critical of the federal government, the star journalist of Radio-Canada was just as much, one suspects, of the Duplessis regime. His coverage of the last years of Union Nationale rule will in some way have motivated his jump into politics in 1960.
From this period, René Lévesque will retain the aversion of the “chef” for Radio-Canada, already perceived at the time, rightly or wrongly, as a benchmark for leftists. Maurice Duplessis does not hesitate to circumvent the public broadcaster, preferring private radio stations, which are largely won over to the conservative ideas of the Union Nationale. A valuable asset in his communication strategy, which will allow him to stay in power for 15 years, uninterruptedly.
“He who cordially detests Radio-Canada, where we take the liberty of criticizing him on occasion, sends us all packing, us men, while he inevitably reserves a more than unctuous welcome to Judith Jasmin and does not never refuse the interview! noted René Lévesque while rubbing shoulders with the former Prime Minister, an inveterate old bachelor who was not insensitive to the charms of the fairer sex. This is perhaps the only common point that René Lévesque shared with his predecessor…
A journalist who stands out
René Lévesque was not always in the good graces of Radio-Canada’s senior management either, although he was an immensely respected figure among the general public. We hesitated before entrusting him with the animation of focus in 1956, recalls journalist Marc Laurendeau, who has studied René Lévesque’s media career extensively.
“You have to remember that the bosses had put it on at 11 o’clock in the evening. They didn’t believe it very much. At the time, television, which was a new medium, was very slick. René Lévesque did not correspond to the image we had of announcers with well-placed voices. He didn’t always finish his sentences and he smoked on the air. He was still rocking the house. At each of his interventions, his frank and direct side stood out. But the leaders ended up understanding that he was still telegenic, because he was able to capture people’s attention, ”underlines the ex-Cynic.
Despite this undeniable ability to talk about complex subjects to the most modest people, Marc Laurendeau makes a point of specifying that René Lévesque was neither a populist nor a sensationalist. A star journalist at Radio-Canada in the 1980s and 1990s, Madeleine Poulin agrees with him. As a teenager in the late 1950s, she remembers the enthusiasm that had won her over when René Lévesque had agreed to come and give a talk at Marianopolis College where she was a student.
However, Madeleine Poulin is not nostalgic for the time of focus, even if for almost 10 years no program has been devoted to international news on the airwaves of the public broadcaster. “Today, people have less need for a program like focus. René Lévesque really started from nothing. We knew nothing about the world around us. Today, even if we don’t want to know, we know what’s going on in Ukraine,” adds the retired Radio-Canada employee, who considers René Lévesque a model for journalism in Quebec.