L'abandon de L'abandon: The Emergence of a Transatlantic "Francosphere" in Quebec and Canada's Strategic Culture (Report) (Essay‪)‬

Introduction: For the Love of France Last year's celebrations commemorating the 400th anniversary of Quebec's founding sparked a controversy over the historic bonds between Quebec, Canada, and France. Some regard 1608 as marking the arrival of francophone civilization on the North American continent, and they understand the "Quebec nation" to be this civilization's bedrock. But others, including Canada's prime minister, Stephen Harper, have preferred to imagine Quebec's founding as also denoting Canada's founding as a state, and they see a direct line of descent running from Samuel de Champlain to the current governor general of Canada, Michaelle Jean. (1) This ascription of an eminently federal lineage to the events being celebrated this past year was too much for one member of parliament from the Bloc quebecois (BQ), Michel Guimond, who dismissed the prime minister's interpretation as nothing short of a "surrealistic rewriting of history." (2) Such an interpretation not only brought to mind Salvador Dali, it also made a mockery of the historical record, for to claim that Canada, rather than Quebec, had been "born French" did seem to skate rather blithely over the British conquest of New France during the Seven Years' War of 1756 to 1763. As the historian, Michel de Waele, put it, to deny the rupture that was the Conquest is tantamount to erasing the original line of division between French and English Canadians. (3)