(Quebec) Rarely, French Prime Minister Gabriel Attal will deliver a speech to the National Assembly of Quebec on April 11 as part of a visit to Canada.
We have to go back forty years, to 1984, to find the last time a Prime Minister of France addressed parliamentarians at the Salon Bleu. It was Laurent Fabius, who had accepted the invitation from René Lévesque.
In 2014, President François Hollande gave a speech to the National Assembly of Quebec. He is the last foreign dignitary to have done so.
President Emmanuel Macron earlier this year named Gabriel Attal, who was a popular education minister, as prime minister in a reshuffle. At 34, he became the youngest PM in the history of the Republic.
Gabriel Attal will first travel to Ottawa on April 10 to meet Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. He will be in Quebec on April 11 then in Montreal on the 12th as part of the alternating meetings of the French and Quebec prime ministers. The last meeting of this kind took place in 2018 when Philippe Couillard visited France.
In a press release, the Prime Minister of Quebec François Legault affirms that this visit by Mr. Attal “is an important opportunity to enrich the direct and privileged relationship which unites our two nations at the highest level of the State. France is our first economic partner in Europe, and above all a great ally of Quebec because of the political and cultural ties that have always united us.”
For his part, Justin Trudeau said he was “looking forward to welcoming Prime Minister Attal to Canada and working with him to advance our common priorities, including the fight against climate change, trade and the protection of democracy” .