You had to show your credentials to enter Espace Saint-Denis, in the heart of Montreal’s Latin Quarter. Body search, police at all doors. The Parti Québécois (PQ) has not forgotten the night of September 4, 2012, when Pauline Marois, just victorious, was targeted by an attack at the Métropolis. “There is always more security with a sovereignist Prime Minister”explains an activist.
Fourteen years later, the separatists are back in power. At 8:40 p.m., the giant screens announce it: Paul St-Pierre Plamondon will be the next Prime Minister. The room explodes. “Quebec, a country!” » chants the crowd. Very quickly, a number dampens enthusiasm: 64, the number of seats needed to govern alone. The PQ would have “only” 59. If the victory is clear, it nevertheless has a taste of unfinished business.
Neither the Trump scarecrow, brandished throughout the campaign, nor the accusations of right-wing his program will have had the skin of the PQ. Paul St-Pierre Plamondon held his line on immigration, secularism and the defense of French. He also promised a third referendum on independence but after Trump’s departure from the White House.
“Fear must not prevent us from fulfilling our destiny”
On stage, PSPP’s eyes fill with tears when his supporters sing People of the countrywhich over the decades has become the de facto anthem of Quebec. A few moments later, he returns to the heart of his project: “The courageous struggle of French-speakers in America to persist in their cultural differences will find meaning when these people obtain their country and the recognition that comes from it. » Then : “Fear must not prevent us from fulfilling our destiny. And this destiny is before us. »
Except that to move this project forward, the new Prime Minister may need an ally that is not natural: Québec solidaire. The formation of Ruba Ghazal, very left-wing (it is the Quebec counterpart of LFI), is also sovereignist and has confirmed that it will campaign for Yes in the event of a referendum. Its nine seats in the National Assembly of Quebec are worth gold.
Among the “PQ”, this combination makes people cringe. On the economy and immigration, the two parties are polar opposites. Short of the campaign, PSPP had also ruled out any formal coalition, saying it was open, however, to agreements on a case-by-case basis. He will have to take into account the other surprise of the evening. The Conservatives, led by Éric Duhaime, particularly in the Quebec region, have achieved a historic breakthrough. The latter could occasionally vote with the PQ on certain economic measures but promise to fight any referendum proposal.
See you in eighteen months?
In Trois-Rivières, 140 kilometers from Montreal, the atmosphere was otherwise funereal. Outgoing Prime Minister Christine Fréchette appeared before her family almost in tears to acknowledge her defeat. Defeated in her own constituency, she witnessed the collapse of her training. The Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ), in power since 2018, did not obtain any seats. A monumental drop for a party which had won 90 in 2022. Typical reaction of large multicultural metropolises: outside, in the already freezing cold of Montreal, a few dozen young demonstrators gave their voice: “No to fascism!” », “No to racism!” “, Then “ No to colonialism! “. The last formula does not lack salt in a Quebec where the British conquest is, in the national narrative, evoked as colonialism!
Inside the Espace St-Denis, we listen America by Michel Delpech. An English-speaking journalist, coming from Ottawa, saw PSPP’s wife and said, not without cruelty: “Should we say “first lady” now? »as if she were the wife of a head of state… A state which, in fact, does not exist.
A sentence is circulating: “See you again in eighteen months. » The last minority PQ government, that of Pauline Marois, only lasted eighteen months before returning to the voters in 2014. Eighteen months for what? Prove that PSPP knows how to govern despite a fragmented Assembly? Or demonstrate that we cannot govern like this? This is the bitter irony of this election night. At a time when sovereignism is returning to the forefront, when the question of Quebec as a country is once again at the center of debate, a small grain of sand has once again slipped into the mechanics of the independence dream. Further delaying the realization of René Lévesque’s dream.
