Legault visits De Gaulle’s office and reinterprets his ‘Long live free Quebec’ message

Premier François Legault made a historic pilgrimage to Paris on Saturday morning.

On a four-day mission to France, he visited the room where General de Gaulle worked from 1947 to 1958, and even took the liberty of commenting on the famous “Vive le Québec libre!” that the French president launched in 1967.

The visit was symbolic: for the very first time, a head of the Quebec government was strolling through the Fondation Charles de Gaulle.

This small museum is not open to the general public. Leader of Free France during the Second World War, the General retired from political life afterwards and settled at this address until he was called back to take up the reins in 1958, when he was elected President and founded the Fifth Republic.

“De Gaulle was an inspiration to all Quebecers,” said Legault, who was given a guided tour led by the foundation’s president, Hervé Gaymard.

“On several levels”

Legault, who has defined himself as a nationalist since leaving the Parti Québécois independence movement, even took the liberty of reinterpreting the General’s famous speech on the balcony of Montreal City Hall in 1967, when he launched the famous “Vive le Québec libre” (long live a free Quebec).

“You can take it in several ways,” he said in an exchange with Gaymard and in front of his interlocutors, including Quebec’s delegate general in Paris, Henri-Paul Rousseau.

“I think René Lévesque took it at face value, that’s correct, but it was also to say that the people, the Quebec nation, must assert itself within Canada.”

This was not at all how the federal authorities in Ottawa saw it at the time.

It was a serious diplomatic incident and De Gaulle was accused of encouraging a secessionist movement that threatened Canada, which was then celebrating the centenary of Confederation.

The General was even forced to cut short his official visit, and it was subsequently reported on several occasions that he did indeed support Quebec independence.

Various Quebec-related artefacts from the foundation were presented to Legault, including a handwritten letter from René Lévesque to General de Gaulle’s widow, as well as various books on Quebec owned by the French head of state.

It had been placed on the work desk at the back of a fairly large room that also contains a library and a number of collectors’ items recalling the general’s career.

Polling lesson

One exchange took an ironic turn when Gaymard recalled the many trials de Gaulle had had to face and his unexpected return to political life when France was going through a crisis in 1958.

“Just a few months earlier, in a poll, only 10 per cent of French people considered Charles de Gaulle to be a figure of the future,” Gaymard pointed out.

“Never believe the polls,” exclaimed Legault, while his wife Isabelle Brais added: “voilà!”

“I’ll remember that,” the Premier concluded with a laugh, while, since 2023, opinion polls have suggested that his government is at rock bottom and struggling to get back on track.

Just this week, Angus Reid suggested that satisfaction with the CAQ leader had reached a new low, at 25 per cent, a drop of 13 per cent since March.

This puts him last among all the provincial premiers.

Legault is in Paris for an essentially economic four-day programme, but on Friday, he met his French counterpart, François Bayrou.

He also took part in Vivatech, a trade fair for technology companies, and on Monday, he will attend the Salon du Bourget, the world’s leading aerospace show.

On Saturday and Sunday, his programme was lighter.

–This report by La Presse Canadienne was translated by CityNews