Yves Michaud, born February 13, 1930 in Acton Vale, near Saint-Hyacinthe, Quebec, Canada is a prominent sovereignist public figure and member of the Parti Québécois.
In 1959, Michaud received a Canada Council grant to study journalism in France at the Université de Strasbourg. He then began a career as a journalist for the Clairon in Saint-Hyacinthe. He was later chief editor of La Patrie and also had a chronicle for the magazine Sept jours.
He joined the ranks of the Liberal Party of Quebec and was elected in the Gouin riding in the 1966 Quebec election, which the Liberals lost. He became friends with fellow Liberals René Lévesque and Robert Bourassa, who would both later become premiers of Quebec.
He joined the Parti Québécois and was defeated as a candidate in the 1970 election and the 1973 Quebec election. He returned to journalism at Le Jour, a newspaper that shut down in 1976.
In 1979, he was in charge of the Quebec Government House of Paris.
Robin Hood of the Banks
Sometimes called Robin des banques (Robin Hood of the banks), Yves Michaud is known by the people of Quebec for his crusade against the practices of large corporations. In 1993, he founded the Association des petits épargnants et investisseurs du Québec (Association of small savers and investors) and won a number of victories in court.
The Michaud Affair
Main article: Michaud Affair
Yves Michaud was at the centre of the so-called Michaud Affair during 2000, in Quebec. It was a political scandal that revolved mostly around his comments about the Jewish people and Lionel Groulx and the B'nai B'rith's reaction. One recollection of his comments, amongst other things, was that he stated that the Jewish people had suffered, but that other peoples had also endured great tragedies. ("The Jews weren't the only people to have suffered.") However, as the affair went along, due notably to Michaud's open defense of Quebecker/French-Canadian ethnic nationalism, he was growingly portrayed by some as an antisemite and denier of the Shoah, which he has always categorically said he was not. It culminated in a Motion of Blame from the National Assembly of Quebec. Lucien Bouchard is also said to have been influenced by the weight of the affair (which received extremely negative coverage in the international press) to leave his function of premier of Quebec in 2001 (although he did not admit it). Michaud still fights to this day for recognition of the Motion of Blame as an "antidemocratic mistake".
The Michaud Affair reawoke the bitter, very emotive and controversial divisions within the Parti Quebecois between proponents of "linguistic nationalism" (soft nationalists, aka "nationalistes mous") versus "ethnic nationalism" (hard liners, aka "purs et durs"). This divide also reflects the contrasting PQ-envisioned "ideal Quebec society" between its more Social-democratic ideological pole versus traditional "race or ethnic"-based nationalism within the party.
This Affair must be interpreted in the context of long standing historical tensions between some more radical factions within the Quebec nationalist movement and the English-speaking and Jewish communities of Quebec ("anglophones"), which can be allegorically compared to the Marxist manichean analogy of "class war" (i.e. French secular/catholic Quebeckers vs English protestant/jewish Quebeckers).
Consequently, whereas most members of the Jewish and English speaking community, and the general media, consider Michaud's allegations to lean towards antisemitism, Michaud supporters within the PQ and the sovereignist movement generally accuse the Michaud Affair to be the result of censorship and defamation against the "ethnic Quebecker" minority and its "rightful quest for political independence and autonomy". This questions is extremely emotive for both the PQ's more radical ethnic-nationalist supporters and the more radical Anglophone federalists of Quebec.
Considering the emotions evolved on both sides of the issue, objective analysis of the Michaud Affair remains an open question as most analysts still interested in the question are emotionally involved. Some less-involved observers in the media have expressed the view that although Michaud's comments were borderline and controversial as they could be interpreted as banalization of the Shoah, the comparisons made by his accusers to notable antisemites like Ernst Zundel were excessive and exaggerated Michaud's intent.
Quotations
It's never the same for them. So I said: it is not the same? The Armenians did not suffer, the Palestinians did not suffer, the Rwandans did not suffer. It's always (just) you. You are the only people who suffered in the history of humanity.
After that, I was fed up. And here we are, I am completely indignant... that some suggested to rename the metro station [named after] [Quebec historian and nationalist] Lionel Groulx, who was the spiritual father of two generations of Quebecers and is almost a Quebec idol.
It's the B'nai B'rith that did that, which was the extremist phalange... There has been world Zionism...
See also
* Sovereigntist events and strategies
* Quebec sovereigntism
External link
* National Assembly biography (http://www.assnat.qc.ca/fra/membres/notices/m-n/MICHY.htm) (in French)
- Profiles of individual Labour MPs, listed alphabetically, includes biographies, voting record and electoral history.
-- http://politics.guardian.co.uk/person/browse/party/mps/0,9369,-145,00.html