The national Festival of Quebec is the official festival of the Quebec. It takes place the June 24th. In Quebec it is one bank holiday and been unemployed under the terms of the Loi on the standards of work (or next Monday if it falls one Sunday, for the employees usually not working Sunday). The festival is still popularly called the Saint Jean Baptiste or the Saint Jean for historical reasons.
Depuis 1984, the National movement of Québécois and the Inhabitants of Quebec is officially responsible for the coordination of the festivities which proceed June 23rd and 24th of each year.

Origins

The origins of the celebrations of June 24th are immémorielles. At the pagan ones, the Summer solstice was celebrated by fires of night (see the Collier of Brísingar). To fight against paganism, the bishops establish sanctuaries of Saint Jean Baptiste whose festival must replace the worship of the cruel divinities (for example Koupalo at the Slavic ones) who, with the successive invasions of the Saxons then Viking S, will last until the end of the dynasty of the Carolingiens.

Thus, one of the sanctuaries most characteristic concerning this fight of influence is that of Saint Jean Baptiste of Audresselles, in France, with fifteen miles of England. This raised sanctuary, from where one sees the sun lying down in the sea, is surrounded by those of the Germanic gods of which the villages surrounding Audresselles always bear the name: Audinghen (Odin, Wotan or Wedne), Raventhun (the corbel accompanied Odin), Ambleteuse, before Amel Thuys (Thuys god or Kill), Tardinghen (Thar god, Thor or Thurst), Loquinghen (god Loki), Bazinghen (goddess Basine) etc

Still today, it is in Saint Jean Baptiste of Audresselles that meet all the catholics of the area for great religious holidays. Among them are families of Acadien (people)|Acadian returned in Bolted after the loss of the Canada by France.

Official under the Old Mode, the festival of the Saint Jean Baptiste remains a very popular festival in the catholic zones of the current France.

The festival unloads in America with the first French colonists. The first celebrations of this Christian festival in News-France would have taken place towards 1638.

The Saint Jean Baptist

The celebrations of the Saint Jean Baptiste take a very patriotic turning with the Low-Canada grace, inter alia, with the actions of Ludger Duvernay, which will become the first president of the Société Saint-Jean-Baptist.

It is on June 24th 1834 which is sung for the first time the “O Canada! my country, my loves” of George-Etienne Cartier at the time of a large patriotic banquet gathering an about sixty French-speaking people and english-speaking of Montreal in the gardens of the lawyer John McDonnell, close to old the Station of Windsor. (Canada of the song is of course not federal Canada of today, which does not exist at that time. What the French-speaking people name at the time Canada corresponds to the southern part of current the Quebec). Several politicians reformists whose Edmund Bailey O' Callaghan, Louis Perrault, Thomas Storrow Brown, Edouard-Etienne Rodier, Louis-Hippolyte Lafontaine and the mayor of Montreal Jacques Viger is present at the time of this banquet.

Following this first celebration, the newspaper Minerve concludes, that “This festival of which the goal is to cement the union of the Canadians will not be without fruit. It will be celebrated annually like national festival and will not be able to miss producing the happiest results. ” It is starting from this date that the national festival of the former Canadians comes from there to correspond with the catholic festival of Jean-Baptiste Saint, anchored already well in the tradition. Following the risings of the Patriots of 1837 and 1838 and with military repressions which followed, the festival was not celebrated any more during several years. When it reappears, it is in the form of a primarily religious celebration, although fires are always present. In Quebec in 1842, it gives place in a great religious procession, thus inaugurating the tradition of the procession of the St-Jean-Baptist, promised with a long posterity. In 1843, Duvernay establishes Association Saint Jean Baptiste, a charitable and patriotic company, for the celebration of the festival of this year in Montreal in 1843.

The June 24th 1880, the citizens of the town of Quebec taking part in the festivities of the St-Jean-Baptist are made sing another “O Canada”, today extremely celebrates. It very quickly becomes popular and it is indicated even " anthem national" of the Canadian-French. The words are of Adolphe-Basile Routhier and the music of Calixa Lavallée.

In 1908, the Pope Pie X makes of Jean-Baptiste Saint the specific owner of the French Canadians. The procession of allegorical tanks is introduced in 1874. Of 1914 with 1923, the processions do not take place.

In 1925, Quebec makes of June 24th one bank holiday.

After the Quiet revolution, on June 24th becomes very political, the youngest generations rejecting the religious symbolic system associated with the festivities.

In 1968, an incident occurred during the traditional procession of June 24th. With the new Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau attending the general election day before there, a riot burst, and 290 people were put in a state of arrest. One filmed Trudeau refusing to shelter or leave the platform when the rioters bombarded it with stones, in addition to bottles containing painting and acid. SRC and CBC repeated the scene in the tv news of the evening. Many people regarded that as being an open act of courage, impressive for the electorate. The incident brought the victory with a considerable majority of the Liberal party the following day.

In 1969, one destroyed the small icon of Saint-Jean-the-Baptist during a riot. This incident caused an interruption of the procession, which did not take place either the following year.

The national Festival

It is the May 11th 1977, which, by a ministerial decree of the government of Rene Lévesque, on June 24th becomes officially the national feastday of Quebec. The following year, the organizing committee of the national Festival of Quebec is created. The committee entrusted initially the organization of the events to the Société Saint-Jean-Baptist. In 1984, the organization is entrusted to the National movement of Québécois and the Inhabitants of Quebec to which belonged the Company Saint-Jean-Baptist.

Midsummer's Day thus becomes the festival of all the Inhabitants of Quebec and either only that of the Inhabitants of Quebec of origin Canadian-Frenchwoman and catholic. By the actions of the Company Saint-Jean-Baptist and National movement of the Inhabitants of Quebec mainly, the festival is gradually laicized and the celebrations of the June 23rd and 24th become what they are today. The traditions to light fires during the night is always alive.

Nowadays, the festival is the occasion of a great cultural festival from which the Inhabitants of Quebec profit to express their existence in the world and their feeling of membership of Quebec. The greatest demonstration proceeds in the Ville of Quebec (which is the National Capital) on the Plaines of Abraham, which joins together each year more than 300.000 people.

Since the June 8th 1978, the Commission of the standards of work of Quebec takes care of the application of Loi on the national festival , which made of June 24th one day off non-working and been unemployed. If it falls another day off, another leave must be added. So because of the nature of employment, the worker cannot go away from his work, it must receive an allowance.

The Saint-Jean-Baptist celebrated except Quebec

Today, the festival of the Saint Jean Baptiste is celebrated by several catholic communities throughout the world, amongst other things in Denmark, in Spain and France. For the Roman Catholic church, on June 24th is one day of religious holiday in the honor of Saint Jean-Baptiste. The national festival besides still is very often called “Midsummer's Day” by the Québécois population.

Because the festival was originally that of all the catholic French Canadians, that they live Quebec, the Ontario, the New England, the Seaboard provinces or the Western Canadian, on June 24th is celebrated still today elsewhere in America whose obviously in Canada. The largest celebrations of the Saint-Jean-Baptist in Canada out-Quebec take place within the framework of the Festival Free-Ontarian, which is held each year with Ottawa.

For several years, a procession of the national Festival of Quebec has been organized in France by the General delegation from Quebec in Paris. The delegations of New York, London, Brussels, Mexico City, and Tokyo support also activities to underline on June 24th.

Political nature of the celebration

Certain people within the French-speaking communities of Canada consider it regrettable that Quebec “adapted” this festival, since from their point of view, the festival had like drank to link all the French-speaking people of Canada. From another point of view, the leaders of the Société Saint-Jean-Baptist of Montreal always show Ottawa to have usurped the historical national symbols of the Inhabitants of Quebec by adapting the Feuille of maple and the anthem O Canada.

According to Jean-Claude Germain, the direction of the festival was recovered by the freemasons.

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