Face of release of Quebec

The Front of release of Quebec ( FLQ ) was a terrorist group Québécois recommending the separation of Quebec of with the Canada. It was founded in the Années 1960 and based mainly with Montreal. This clandestine movement claimed a Insurrection Marxist inspiration and anarchistic, the inversion of the government of Quebec, the emancipation of the Inhabitants of Quebec vis-a-vis Canada and the establishment of a company of workers.

Presentation

According to Gabriel Hudon, the FLQ was born from another movement, the Resistance networks. He tells that he came into contact with a radical group at the time of his implication within the Rassemblement for national independence (RIN). He met other members in the apartment of an individual whom he calls “X”. It is there that it becomes acquainted with Raymond Villeneuve and Georges Schoeters. Following the reception of a letter intended for the members of the Network which affirms: “if you do not cease your activities, the police force will undertake some… ”, Hudon, Villeneuve and Schoeters withdraw movement to found the Face of release of Quebec.

In 1963, the members of the FLQ organized themselves and were involved under the aegis of Georges Schoeters, revolutionist Belgian. The October 7th 1963, Schoeters was condemned to twice five years of prison for political crimes.

The structure of the organization being more or less precise, the number of cells forever be given with certainty the observers identified some cells, the such cell Dieppe, the cell Louis Riel, the cell Nelson, the cell Saint-Denis, the Cellule of information Viger, the Cellule Release and the Cellule of financing Chénier. The two last were implied in what one called the Crise of October.

The creation of the FLQ

The Face of release of Quebec, better known under the name of FLQ, was founded at the beginning of the Années 1960 by nationalists of political party RIN (Rassemblement for national independence). At that time, the particular context of Quebec gives several reasons to this group of independence nature to make its appearance in the political scene of the province.

With this intention, the social contexts, economic and political will be highlighted. Since, indeed, with the social status, the bad work conditions of the workmen Canadian-French, imbalance between the english-speaking and the French-speaking people, the rise of unemployment rate, etc are with the number of the reasons which forced certain social categories, as well working, taxi drivers as intellectuals to be revolted. Then, at the political level, the rise of the thought souverainist and the “quiet revolution” contributed to this rise of the FLQ. Moreover, the political situations of some countries of Europe and Africa having acquired their independence inspired and gave hope to the Québécois nationalists.

To be able to include/understand the reasons of the creation of the FLQ, it is important to seize which aspects of the Québécois context pushed a group like this one to make its appearance in the years 1960, in full “quiet revolution”.

Actions

Of 1963 with 1970, the FLQ made more than 200 terrorist activities with political motivation, of which plastic bomb attacks, steerings of bank, causing at least three died by bombs and two died by ball. In 1963, Gabriel Hudon and Raymond Villeneuve were condemned to 12 years of imprisonment for crimes against the State after their bomb had killed the sergeant O' Neill, guard of a recruitment center of the Canadian Armed forces. Starting from 1970,33 members of the FLQ were in prison, including four condemned murderers. The targets of the FLQ included/understood in particular anglophone companies, banks, the Université McGill like several houses of english-speaking in the rich person district of Westmount, wedged by the town of Montreal.

As a Marxist group, the FLQ was also largely opposite with the dominant class of the the United States. A cell of the movement even hoped to explode the Statue of Freedom but was apprehended before that does not occur. A theory conspirationnist suggests that the group was infiltrated on several occasions by agents known as provocative of the Canadian Royal Gendarmerie (GRC). According to this theory, crimes would have been committed by police officers of the GRC under cover of the FLQ. Carole Deveault, Jean-Jacques Lanciault and François Fritz Séguin are examples according to Louis Fournier.

In 1966, a secret document of eight pages entitled revolutionary Strategy and the role of the Avant-garde was prepared by the FLQ and described its long-term strategy: successive waves of flights, acts of violence, plastic bomb attacks and removals, culminating with the insurrection and the revolution.

Crisis of October

The October 5th 1970, the members of the Libération cell of the FLQ removed James Richard Cross, the commercial police chief British visits some with the country. Little time afterwards, the October 10th, the Chénier cell removes the Deputy Prime Minister and Québécois Minister for Labor, Pierre Laporte, which died, according to the official version and the exit of the lawsuit for murder, assassinated, or according to the version of the members of the Libération cell, in an accidental way after having tried to flee while jumping by a window, the October 17th 1970.

members of the cell Release:

* Jacques Cossette-Trudel

* Louise Lanctôt (Louise Cossette-Trudel)

* Jacques Lanctôt

* Marc Carbonneau

* Yves Langlois (also known like Pierre Séguin)

* Nigel Barry Hamer

members of the Chénier cell:

* Paul Pink

* Jacques Rose

* Francis Simard

* Bernard Lortie

After the removal of James Cross-country race at his house of Westmount by the members of the cell of Release, the FLQ diffused a list of requests for the release of Cross-country race:

release of 23 political prisoners;
500.000 $ in Gold;
diffusion and publication of the Proclamation of the FLQ;
publication of the names of the advisers of the police force for the terrorist activities;
a plane to take the kidnappers towards Cuba or the Algeria;
the suspension of all research activities by the police force;
re-employment of 400 ex-employees of the Lapalme company by Canada Stations following their setting with foot.

The police force ends up discovering the place where the kidnappers retained the diplomat. Its release was negotiated and the December 3rd 1970, the request of five of the terrorists of the sure passage towards Cuba by the Gouvernement of Canada, after the approval of Fidel Castro, was accepted.

In July 1980, the police force stops and shows six people in relation to the removal of Cross-country race. Nigel Barry Hamer, radical British Socialist and sympathizer of the FLQ, plead guilty and are condemned to 12 months of prison.

Although the five terrorists who wanted to go to Cuba were exiled of Canada with life, they were found, a few years later, with Paris (France).

Cossette-Trudel pled guilty with the judgment and were condemned to two years of prison for their part in removal. They were released on word after eight month of penitentiary.

Marc Carbonneau was condemned to twenty month of prison and three years of probation for removal, forced detention, conspiracy and extortion.

Yves Langlois was condemned to two years of prison minus one day for its part in removal. He made ten months.

Four weeks after the kidnappers of James Cross were found, Paul Pink and the kidnappers of Pierre Laporte were found in the corner of the basement of a country house. They were considered and condemned for removal and murder.

Law of measurements of war

Following removals, the Prime Minister for Canada, Pierre Elliott Trudeau deployed the Canadian Forces under the Acte of measurements of war, - which had been used only twice before in the history of Canada, both in time of war. The law of measurements of war allowed the arrest without mandate of almost 457 people, of which Pauline Julien. The Crise of October was the first political crisis of the history of Quebec. The execution of Pierre Laporte was only the second political assassination in the Canadian history after the assassination in 1868 of Thomas D' Arcy McGee.

The events of October 1970 caused a certain loss of support of the average violent ones for the promotion of the independence of Quebec. Nevertheless, the Left Québécois (left souverainist), was elected in 1976 because its policy carried this one by democratic means.

After-FLQ

The ways which two of the founders of the FLQ borrowed, Charles Gagnon and Pierre Vallières, with “died” of the FLQ illustrate well the general tendencies which were profiled. The books the urgency to choose and For a proletarian party which Vallières and Gagnon wrote respectively summarize well the positions of these two leaders. Whereas Vallières embraced the way electoralist, by uniting the rows of the PQ, Charles Gagnon firmly took the revolutionary route by melting the group Marxist-Leninist In fight!. In the Years 1970, few former felquists or sympathizers felquists followed Vallières which besides was insulated enough with the PQ. Rejecting the “collaboration of class”, a good part of the ex-militants united with the group of Gagnon, rejecting “middle-class nationalism”. That even led them to make the promotion of the boycott of the first referendum on the sovereignty of Quebec.

The after-Crisis of October

Certain claiming activities were the work of some members isolated from the organization after the events of October 1970. In 2001, Rhéal Mathieu, a member of the BAF (Brigade of self-defense of French) which in 1967 had been condemned to nine years of prison for terrorist activities, was condemned again to have tried to set fire to three bar-restaurants Second Cup in Montreal. Mathieu aimed at the largest coffee retailer specialized in Canada for the use by the company of his English mark Second Cup . Mathieu was condemned to one month of prison. Little time after, seven restaurants McDonald's was burnt with kingpins. After the cover of the media on the incendiary bombs, the Second Cup of Quebec changed their badges for the coffees Second Cup for then becoming again with their original name in 2007.

Militant of the FLQ

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