"The link between France and Quebec calls us to each other"

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• Yves François Blanchet, leader of the Quebec independence party the Bloc Québécois, was in Paris last week.

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  , he insists on the link uniting according to him between France and Quebec.

  He also said he was disappointed with France's lack of spirit in defending its language.

We cannot say that the French men and women are very interested in Quebec, despite their linguistic proximity.

The converse is not true.

Last week, Yves-François Blanchet, Quebec member of the House of Commons of Canada, was in Paris.

The latter is also the leader of the Bloc Québécois (32 deputies out of the 78 in Quebec), a party which militates for the independence of Quebec from the Canadian Parliament.

With

, he explains the importance of the link between France and Quebec, and that of the defense of the French language.

How to explain to the French the idea of ​​independence of Quebec, which is supported by a large part of the Quebec population?

The sovereignist movement gained momentum in the 1960s, during what we call the “Quiet Revolution”.

It came from a desire for recognition of a Quebec society distinct from the rest of Canada and a desire to recover the rights ceded by Quebec to the Canadian federation when it was created [in the 19th century].

Our role, in the Bloc Québécois, is first of all to represent and defend the interests of Quebeckers in the Canadian Parliament.

But we will never drop the idea of ​​sovereignty, it is our fundamental mission to remain the bearers of the idea of ​​independence.

Why is it important for you to go through Paris?

This makes it possible to perpetuate what I call "independence diplomacy", this desire of the Quebec sovereignty movement to be recognized.

First and foremost in France, which is our affectionate and natural base.

This has been neglected by government, including the sovereignist movement, for at least the past twenty years.

Despite the free trade treaty with Europe [of 2017], which was initiated by Quebec, the relationship has been restricted to ceremonial or purely commercial contacts, while Franco-Quebec friendship has the mutual duty to go well beyond that.

The historical link between France and Quebec calls us to each other.

Quebec and French societies are different, but subjects sometimes cross the ocean, such as that of secularism.

In your country, the debate has been raging since the end of the 2000s.

The debate on secularism is defined in very different ways.

It is very much associated in France, and to a certain extent in Quebec, with the debate on immigration.

However, in Quebec, the debate on immigration is primarily linguistic.

It concerns the ability of Quebec, with a population of 8.5 million, to preserve its linguistic identity.

But also a certain number of values ​​stemming from the “Quiet Revolution”, including emancipation from authority or the intrusion of religion into state affairs.

How do you view

I find it hard to pass judgment on a government which, however friendly it may be, is foreign.

I will only say that if the French government expressed more interest in Quebec, Quebecers would appreciate it very much.

Visits by French heads of state to Quebec are generally a source of great pride for us.

We were a little disappointed with the cancellation of Emmanuel Macron's speech to the National Assembly of Quebec a few years ago [in 2018].

How frankly we were irritated by that of Nicolas Sarkozy in this same Assembly [ten years earlier], who equated the notion of sovereignty of Quebec with that of detestation.

We still have it in our throats.

Quebec is often at the forefront of defending the French language and the “French fact” in North America, often much more than France.

Does this disappoint you?

I think the best defense of the French language is to highlight and promote its beauty, its majesty, its history and its poetry.

I like to say that I would never have seduced my spouse if I hadn't done so in French.

That said, French in Quebec is in dire need of Quebecers making it the vehicle of their pride.

When I see in France the appearance of English words, which are not and will never be an enrichment of the French language, my feeling is sadness.

Should France do more?

France is one of the nations that should be most proud of their civilizing role in Western history.

This pride should appear in membership, in the transmission of a language that has this trace in history.

We feel a distant post-war effect, where the United States is still an extraordinary myth which, perhaps, leads people from many countries to grant exaggerated virtues to English.

The question of the youth vote arises for all parties, in all the major Western democracies.

Perhaps even more acutely for the Quebec sovereignty movement.

How can we succeed in rallying the younger generations?

The last election in Quebec gave a very disappointing result for the sovereignists in the National Assembly of Quebec [only 3 deputies out of 125 for the Parti Québécois, independentist].

But the Parti Québécois has also succeeded in completely renewing the list of its candidates, with an incredible youth and the rejuvenation of its ideas.

Like, for example, the association of the idea of ​​sovereignty with that of a more ecological model.

Which is totally incompatible with the Canadian model.

Regardless of Justin Trudeau's bluster and histrionics, Canada is an oil state, with the second largest oil reserves in the world and a firm intention to exploit them.

So much so that Canada is the second country in the world that subsidizes its oil industry the most, per capita, which is absolutely odious.

Quebec has no merit, but has a geography that allows it to be exemplary in terms of economic development compatible with the environment.

And that is a discourse that makes it possible to reach the younger generations.

But the latter are also seduced by a more multicultural discourse.

Is there an incompatibility with this type of discourse and a sovereignist approach?

Multiculturalism is, in essence, the negation of the Nation, especially in Canada.

So trying to reconcile multiculturalism and independence seems difficult.

Now, we can be very left-wing, very progressive, very ecological, we will only be able to express it better when we have these issues: the multiculturalism axis versus Quebec values ​​and the French language, and of course the federalist versus sovereignty.

The appearance of new countries in an absolutely democratic way, and of a country which can be a beacon in many respects, is not a revolution.

This is progress whose foundation is essentially administrative.

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