Because of his opposition to Bill 21 and his harsh criticism of the Parti Québécois, Émile Bilodeau was seen by some as not being unifying enough and kept away from reporters on the traditional media day before the National Day show on the Plains of Abraham.

Except for him, all the artists who will take part in the show on Friday evening were available to answer questions from the press.

Apparently the organizers didn’t want him to stoke the fires of a controversy that took on political proportions when the PQ decided not to send representatives to the Plains.

Still posing for the group photo on stage, Émile Bilodeau had fun handing everyone “Bonne Saint-Jean”.

The group Vulgaires Machins will open the ball in the first part on Friday before the big show of the National Day. Photo Stevens LeBlanc/Le Journal de Quebec

“He needs support”

Behind the scenes, his colleagues showed him their support.

“That’s for sure as a friend [d’Émile]”It sucks to see all this bashing,” said Kanen, Innu vocalist of Uashat mak Mani-utenam. “I think he needs the support and validation of his friends more than ever.”

“I salute Émile,” said Pierre Kwenders, saluting his genius for putting together this incredible show with artists representing Quebec yesterday, today and beyond.”

No to politicization

However, other artists argued that politics had no place on National Day.

“A party cannot be political,” said 2023 spokeswoman Léane Labrèche-Dor, who will read the patriotic speech on Friday night.

Louis-Jean Cormier also advocates a non-political celebration. “I don’t like that we see the national day as a political platform. I want to celebrate with everyone.

An unusual party

The President of the National Movement of Quebecers (MNQ), Frédéric Lapointe, is not so categorical.

“It’s important to get together casually most of the time and there are times when you need to know how to get together even when the hour is serious. In addition to the festive character of our national holiday, it is also the staging of our unity. On a political level, this is not trivial,” he argued.

However, he recognized that the MNQ will learn lessons from this tumultuous episode.

“We understand that Quebecers love National Day. For them it is symbolically important. Everyone wants to relate to it, but not everyone agrees on how. These are discussions that have taken place and will take place. Right now is not the time to talk loud in the kitchen, it is the time to open presents.”

Gabriel Boric speaks during the opening of the Presidential Commission for Peace and Understanding in Santiago, Chile. Lukas Solis (DPA via Europa Press)

Chilean President Gabriel Boric today addressed for the first time a political scandal that represents a blow to the integrity pledge of the Broad Front, the 37-year-old president’s fledgling left-wing coalition. “If the public prosecutor decides to get involved, it is because there is a suspicion or a history of criminal activity, and that is very serious,” the head of state said today of the State Ministry’s decision to launch investigations into the Fundación Democracia Viva, the Revolución party Democratica (RD). One of the most important of the Chilean Broad Front, due to the multi-million dollar and controversial agreements signed with the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development.

Various figures from the ruling party are involved in the conspiracy, including MP Catalina Pérez, a DR activist, president of the party between 2019 and 2021, who had to step down from her position as vice-president of the Chamber of Deputies. This Thursday, traditional right-wing party UDI filed a fraud and lobbying complaint against the Treasury Department to clarify responsibilities in the case.

Each ministry has a regional ministerial secretariat, Seremi, in each of the 16 regions into which Chilean territory is divided. The Seremi de Vivienda in the Antofagasta region in the north of the country was led by Carlos Contreras, a DR militant who was a close adviser to Deputy Pérez. In office, he directly donated 426 million pesos (about $530,000) to the Fundación Democracia Viva, headed by lawmaker partner Daniel Andrade. They were said to be working together in support of precarious settlements in the region.

The case led to the departure of Contreras, who signed the controversial agreement, which accounted for around 6% of that Seremi’s total budget. The parliamentarian, who represents precisely one district of Antofagasta, has defended herself, distancing herself from both Contreras and Andrade: “Here there was a serious error of political judgement, a serious error of political judgement, and the political leaders who are the signatories.” Mr. Carlos Contreras and Mr. Daniel Andrade must react politically to the agreement,” assured the MP, one of the main representatives of the Democratic Revolution, a party to which Giorgio Jackson, Minister for Social Development of the government, belongs and “companion route” of the President.

This case represents serious damage for a new left political generation that came to power in March 2022 with a strong promise to renew not only their faces but above all their practices. Boric referred to this matter today: “We must be very clear and firm if in the past our political sector has condemned very strongly all kinds of actions contrary to public belief,” President Boric said. “Where there has been crime or a crime is suspected, that will be justice. Today, when it comes to government-affiliated individuals, we need to uphold the same standard and be even tougher. “There must be no room for complacency and protection here, but we must be very clear that we will not allow such a situation,” stressed the Chilean President in a public action.

The Comptroller’s Office stepped on the scene this Thursday, asking the Department of Housing and Urban Development, headed by socialist Carlos Montes, to list within five days all the resources available under the precarious settlements program from this portfolio to others foundations were transferred. The petition focuses on Antofagasta Housing Seremi, where this case broke out and other direct transfers are being investigated.

President Boric’s Social Convergence party, which forms the Broad Front as DR, has asserted that this conspiracy “represents a serious political error that damages the Broad Front’s ‘ethical commitment’. After a national political council, the same RD party requested the expulsion of Andrade and Contreras “for violating internal regulations”.

The housing minister, socialist Carlos Montes of the moderate left, demanded that the Fundación Democracia Viva consider the signed contracts to be over and, moreover, in the same way President Boric addressed today, that it had not received the funds needed .

But the controversy grows with the hours. El Mercurio newspaper reported today that Tatiana Rojas, the undersecretary for housing – the second in the portfolio – received an email in May alerting her to the controversial agreements. Rojas, like the others, is a militant supporter of the DR.

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On Wednesday, a Palestinian was killed in a village attacked by dozens of Israelis in the northern occupied West Bank. It was the latest death in a new outbreak of Israeli-Palestinian violence.

• Also read: West Bank: 4 dead and 4 injured in shooting near settlement

• Also read: Islamic Jihad activist killed by Israeli forces in the West Bank

According to local residents, around 200 Israelis set fire to agricultural land and dozens of cars in Turmusayya, a city between Ramallah and Nablus, in the afternoon.

“The settlers shot at us and when the police and army arrived they fired rubber bullets and tear gas canisters,” Awad Abou Samra told AFP. At the scene, AFP journalists saw burnt houses and injured people who were evacuated by ambulance.

The Israeli army, which has occupied the West Bank since 1967, said in a statement that Israelis had “burned Palestinians’ vehicles and property” and that their soldiers had intervened in Turmusayya “to put out the fires” and “prevent clashes.” . .

“There are days when we need to remember the obvious: the State of Israel is a state governed by the rule of law (and) all citizens are obliged to obey the law,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a video following the events, “that we will.” Accept “no unrest” in the West Bank.

Israeli police said they were “the target of violence by dozens of Palestinians” in Turmusayya and one officer “shot at a rioter.” The Palestinian Ministry of Health reported one death from a bullet in the chest.

“fear”

“I came out and saw settlers coming towards us, a group of masked men trying to throw stones at our house,” Mohammed Abdallah, an 18-year-old Palestinian-American visiting Turmusayya, told AFP. , where many Palestinian-Americans live.

“They were armed (…) We don’t know if it’s going to happen again tonight, we’re all scared,” he added.

The violence came shortly after the funeral of a 17-year-old Israeli in Shilo, a settlement adjacent to Turmusayya, who was killed in a deadly attack on four Israelis near the settlement of Eli on Tuesday. The two Palestinian attackers were shot dead.

Another attack by Israeli soldiers on the village of Ourif, where the two men were from, was reported Wednesday evening. According to Abdelhakim Shehada, the village mayor, the residents threw stones at them and pushed them back. “The situation is calm now and the Israeli army is here,” he told AFP by phone.

In response to Eli’s attack, the Israeli government on Wednesday decided to speed up a project to build 1,000 houses in the settlement.

“Our response to terrorism is to hit hard and build our country,” Netanyahu said in a statement, ignoring repeated calls by the UN to halt Israeli settlement expansion in the West Bank.

Jordan “strongly condemned the attacks by Israeli settlers on several villages” and “the Israeli government’s announcement” that it would build 1,000 new housing units.

The Troubled United States

The attack near the settlement of Eli came the day after a deadly IDF raid in Jenin (north of the West Bank) by the Israeli army on Monday, where the soldiers met strong resistance.

According to the Palestinian Health Ministry, a 15-year-old girl who was injured on Monday succumbed to her injuries on Wednesday, bringing the number of Palestinians killed in the raid to seven.

The United States, which condemned “the terrorist attack on Israelis near Eli” on Tuesday, on Wednesday expressed its “deep concern” over the outbreak of violence in the West Bank and said it was also concerned about the attack on the village of Turmusayya.

At least 171 Palestinians, 25 Israelis, one Ukrainian and one Italian have been killed in violence in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict since the beginning of the year, according to an AFP tally compiled from official Israeli and Palestinian sources.

These statistics include combatants and civilians, including minors, on the Palestinian side and mostly civilians, including minors, on the Israeli side, as well as three members of the Arab minority.