Pur and hard is an expression employed in certain media of Quebec for designer the partisans of one oneself-saying ideological hard line inside the Mouvement souverainist of Quebec. The general direction of the expression refers to a refusal of compromise on the objectives of the movement, that is to say the safeguard of French and the political independence of the Québécois nation, by great number of souverainists.

The adversaries of independence use this term in a very pejorative way, giving a direction without too much nuance to the expression. For those, pure and hard ones of the Québécois Party (PQ) are nationalist (with the pejorative direction), reactionaries and intolerant and it is of good tone to suspect them of being also racist. A good number of partisans of independence were seen joined the label of “pure and hard” by journalists of the Press and Radio-Canada, including inter alia Yves Michaud and Jacques Parizeau.

In answer to the use and the marked meaning of this expression, some militants pequists, such as for example Jean-Claude Saint-Andrew, candidate with the direction of the PQ, answered the phenomenon by being identified themselves like “pure hard er”.

Inside even of the PQ, pure and hard ones were already opposed to the “soft” candidates more like Lucien Bouchard and Rene Lévesque. They refuse very compromised etapist proposed by the least radical.

See too

• Movement souverainist of independence Quebec
• Left
• Left Québécois
• Jean-Claude Saint-Andrew, the candidate identified of pure and hard in the race with the cheffery of the Québécois Party
• Robert Laplante