Vive le Québec libre speech
From Free net encyclopedia
Image:De Gaulle, Vive le Quebec libre.jpg
Vive le Québec libre! (Long live free Quebec!) was a controversial phrase in a speech given by French President Charles de Gaulle in Montreal on July 24, 1967.
De Gaulle was in Canada to visit Expo 67. While giving an address to a large crowd from a balcony at Montreal city hall, he uttered Vive le Québec (Long live Quebec!) then added, Vive le Québec libre! (Long live free Quebec!).
The speech was a clear encouragement of Quebec separatism and, coming from the French head of state, a serious breach of diplomatic protocol. It achieved its goal of emboldening the separatist movement, and it created a serious rift between the two countries.
Standing near de Gaulle was Pauline Vanier, the wife of the late Governor General Georges Vanier, the de jure Canadian head of state. She pressed a scrap of paper bearing the simple reproach "1940" into de Gaulle's hand, in reference to the fall of France to the Nazis and Canada's considerable role and sacrifice in liberating it.
Most English-speaking Canadians were outraged at the implied threat to Canada's territorial integrity and saw the words as an insult to the thousands of Canadians who fought and died on the battlefields of France during two World Wars. There was much criticism in the Canadian media, and the Prime Minister of Canada, Lester B. Pearson, a soldier who had fought in World War I and a Nobel Peace Prize winner, stated that "Canadians do not need to be liberated" and cancelled the remainder of the state visit.
Pearson said, "Certain statements by President de Gaulle tend to encourage the small minority of our population whose aim is to destroy Canada: and as such, they are unacceptable to the Canadian people and its government."
De Gaulle, claiming that the word "unacceptable" was unacceptable, promptly cancelled the remainder of his visit, and returned to France where he was also heavily criticised by a large part of the French media for his serious breach of international protocol.
However, the event was seen as a watershed moment by members of the Quebec sovereignty movement and is frequently mentioned to this day.
His remarks were evidently not spontaneous. De Gaulle had been invited by Québec premier Daniel Johnson. Although a visiting head of state, he avoided the Canadian capital, Ottawa, taking a whole week to cross the Atlantic on the warship Colbert so he could arrive in Québec City instead. Earlier in the visit, de Gaulle had hinted at his support for Quebec separatism, even going so far as to say that his procession in Montreal reminded him of his return to Paris after it was freed from the Nazis during World War II.
Before boarding the Colbert, de Gaulle told Xavier Deniau: "They will hear me over there, it will make waves!" A week earlier, he confided to his son-in-law that "I will hit hard. Hell will happen, but it has to be done. It's the last occasion to repent for France's cowardice," referring to what he claimed was its "abandonment" of 60,000 French colonists to the British after France was defeated in the Seven Years' War in 1760.
On the trip back home, he told Bernard Dorin "What happened was a historical phenomenon that may have been [foreseen], but which took a shape that only the event could provide. Of course, I could, like many others, get away from it by uttering some courtesies or diplomatic sidesteps, but when one is Général de Gaulle, one does not get away with those kind of expedients. What I did, I had to do it."