We know that François Legault is going in circles. He has lost his nationalist compass, as if reluctantly playing the role of a grumpy federalist.
Can he find her?
He could do this by reading The Return of the Blues, the remarkable work of Étienne-Alexandre Beauregard (EAB), one of the most brilliant intellectuals of his generation (he is barely 22 years old) and who, after a period in the PQ, joined the CAQ, became one of his traveling companions and worked with him.
In this book, EAB offers a reinterpretation of our political-intellectual history. He distinguishes two main poles, the blue and the red.
blues
Schematically, we would say that the Blues adhere to the historical continuity of the Quebec people, while the Reds are obsessed with a never-satisfied quest for modernity.
The Blues have a sense of collective identity and want the state to ensure their support. The Reds fear that the collective will crush the individual.
Why is EAB talking about the return of the blues?
Because the conservative dimension of nationalism is no longer seen as a deficiency, while it was present in the dynamics of the Quiet Revolution, crossed, as we can understand, with the desire for social liberation.
This tradition, which, according to the EAB, goes back to François-Xavier Garneau, continues through Groulx, Duplessis and Lévesque and is today politically supported by François Legault.
Conservative nationalism has returned with the question of identity (Quebec identity or multiculturalism), which replaced the question of Quebec's political status (sovereignty or federalism) after the last referendum, when it was necessary to discuss the confirmation of Quebec in a context to think about a historical dead end.
The fight for secularism, for the French language, the resistance to wokism and multiculturalism are at the heart of this renewed nationalism.
However, this analysis reaches its limits in the objective development of the political situation.
Nationalism can only be rhetoric. He cannot settle for “concrete gains,” which seem childish in historical terms when we know that Quebec is doomed to demographic decline compared to Canada.
Autonomism has reached its limits.
We return to Beauregard's Return of the Blues.
EAB's scholarship is breathtaking, his analytical power extraordinary. He is right to separate nationalism from a progressivism that often hinders it.
Perhaps in a future book he will be brought to analyze the current historical moment, that of the return to the sovereigntist-federalist divide. Because the question of Quebec's place is not an ideological feeling: we become aware of it through reality.
I said that François Legault should read it. In fact, he read it and thought good things about it.
Autonomism
It is left to him to draw some political conclusions.
When he says that Canada is condemning us to “Louisianization” with its crazy immigration policies, he is speaking the truth.
However, it is not enough to send a letter of protest to Ottawa.
We have to draw a real conclusion from this. We know you.
EAB could remind him of that.