Impacts de la loi 101 sur la culture politique au Québec de 1977 à 1997

The Charter of the French Language, better known as Bill 101, became law in Quebec in 1977 under the Parti Québécois government. According to the author, this legislation made French-speaking Quebecers feel like a majority rather than a minority group; it reversed the economic superiority of the province's Anglophone population; it dampened the anglicization of immigrants to the province; and it gave Montreal a "French face". But despite the Charter and its impacts, the language question in Quebec remained a polarizing issue at the heart of many political debates in the twenty years following its adoption. The author argues that Bill 101, because of its popularity with Francophones and its unpopularity among non-Francophones, became part of the political culture in the province by mobilizing the Parti Québécois to defend it and forcing the Liberal Party of Quebec to embrace it after originally denouncing it. One of the consequences of the reversal by the Liberal Party was a split by many Anglophones with the Liberal Party and the creation of the Equality Party in 1989, a short-lived Anglo-rights political movement that elected four members to the National Assembly that year in ridings that traditionally voted Liberal. The author maintains that the linguistic question remained a polarizing subject among the electorate between 1977 and 1997, and the debate surrounding Bill 101 helped to maintain the historical division between Anglophones and Francophones at the political level. By 1997, he argues, a "calming" occurs and the linguistic question in the province was no longer such a powerful element of political discourse.

Master's Thesis

Université du Québec à Montréal

Montréal

2016

vi-202p.

fr