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ABSTRACT
Because of France’s unique role in Quebec’s international relations, any study of Quebec’s emergence on the international scene necessarily involves an analysis of this relationship. This article proposes an examination of Canada–France–Quebec relations in the decades following de Gaulle’s resignation in 1969. Several scholars focus on France’s implicit support for Quebec independence, considering that to be the essential ingredient of their “special relationship,” whereas I demonstrate that the foregoing interpretation overlooks the fact that France began to withdraw from the Canadian internal debate soon after de Gaulle’s resignation. During the last forty years, France’s abstention from interfering in Canadian internal affairs enabled both the flourishing of Quebec diplomacy and the deepening of the France–Quebec relationship.
Acknowledgments
This article was translated by Susan M. Murphy. The author wants to thank Stéphane Paquin for his comment on an earlier version of this article. All views expressed here are those of the author.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1 It should be noted that even in 1967 the French reaction to de Gaulle’s declaration was not unanimous; some openly criticized it (Dorin Citation2006, 208–209).
2 French Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault’s March 2013 Quebec visit was the seventeenth of these meetings.
3 For example, the joint project between the Péchiney–Ugine–Kuhlmann companies and Hydro-Québec resulted in the 1986 opening of an aluminum factory in the Bécancour region.
4 Canada, Canada–Quebec, and Canada–New Brunswick are all members of the OIF.
5 Since the 1980s, however, official visits have for the most part occurred without incident (Guillaume and Guillaume Citation1987).
6 For an analysis of parallel efforts by René Lévesque’s government before the 1980 referendum, see Shiro Noda (Citation2001).
7 In 1991, Jacques Parizeau then chief of the opposition had already met François Mitterrand.
8 For a detailed description of the Parti Québécois’ international strategy during the 1995 referendum, see Nossal, Roussel, and Paquin (Citation2010, 316–320).
9 The cause of this decades-old conflict between France and Quebec is a French law that forbids the diffusion of films dubbed in Quebec. The conflict reappeared in the 1990s when the growth of a Quebec dubbing industry enabled the rapid diffusion of American films. Lobbied by French actors’ unions, France refused to budge from its protectionist position.
10 Canada took the dispute to the World Trade Organization but lost the case in 2001.
11 François Mitterrand was also critical of the “doubly negative” ni-ni formula (Bastien Citation1999, 304–305).
12 His friendship with Paul Desmarais, dating back to the middle of the 1990s, was an important factor feeding this interpretation. Sarkozy invited Desmarais, a long-time staunch federalist considered by the sovereignists as one of their most influential enemies (Duguay Citation2010, 563), to both the dinner celebrating his 2007 election and Charest’s investiture in the Légion d’Honneur. Further, shortly after his election Sarkozy held a reception in honor of Demarais at the Élysée Palace.
13 For example, during the May 2008 visit of Canada’s Governor General Michaelle Jean, in the course of a ceremony honoring Canadian soldiers who died in France during the Second World War, Sarkozy declared: “Madame, I want you to know that France loves Canada well. We love Quebec, but we love Canada. We love them both. Those who died here knew which country they came from, and no one asked them from which region they hailed or what language they spoke.” Several months later (October 17, 2008), during the Summit of la Francophonie in Quebec City, Sarkozy once again provoked consternation in the sovereignist camp by declaring: “Someone who tells me the world needs another division does not interpret the world the same way I do.” He added that he did not understand why “fraternal or familial love for Quebec had to proven by showing mistrust of Canada.” Similarly, during the February 2009 ceremony investing Jean Charest as a Commandeur of L’Ordre de la Légion d’honneur de France, Sarkozy declared that he was in favor of “the refusal of sectarianism, of division, of inward-looking communities, and of defining one’s identity in terms of a ferocious opposition to the other” (Duguay Citation2010, 565–566).
14 These relations are “normal” because they are similar to those held by Canada and by France with other countries. See, however, (Massie Citation2009, 260), who concludes from his historical and cultural analysis that France has been perceived by Canada as a “special ally and friend,” even though the “reciprocity of the specialness of the relationship may be seriously questioned”.
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Jérémie Cornut
Jérémie Cornut holds a PhD from École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (Paris). He is currently postdoctoral fellow at the department of political science at the University of Waterloo. He has held research positions at McGill University and the University of Southern California. His research interests include diplomacy, Canadian foreign policy, and IR theory. His research findings have notably been published in Cooperation and Conflict, International Studies Perspectives, Journal of International Relations and Development, International Journal, Canadian Journal of Political Science, and Canadian Foreign Policy Journal. He is currently working on a project on the changing practices of frontline diplomacy.