The De Gaulle-Johnson Intervention to Break the Empire part 4: Daniel Johnson's Courage

At the official dinner honouring General de Gaulle on the evening of his arrival in Québec, Premier Daniel Johnson was full of hope and outlined his acceptance of the General’s challenge to join in his Great Design.

“Under your leadership, France has recovered a stability that merits our admiration. She has vigorously pursued a vast program of national planning which, in two decades, has justified your unshakable faith in what you yourself have called the ‘genius of rebirth.”

“[…] but your light shines beyond the frontiers of old Europe as witnessed by the eloquent receptions of which you were the object in Asia and in the Americas during recent years. Your understanding of world problems, your decisiveness and your tenacity executing your ideas polarises the hopes of numerous countries. Your diplomatic actions have proven in many ways to be one of the most powerful factors of international equilibrium.”

Two days later, just before de Gaulle’s departure, Johnson added that he believed a new era was opening up for Quebec on the world stage, and that Quebec would be able to play a role of partner and unifying force to achieve universal good will. In the mind of the Premier, the French nation in America would enter world history and realize her international role.

Upon returning to Paris, de Gaulle explained his political vision to the French people, a vision which Anglo American political forces acting through the French press and political channels rabidly attacked. In his televised address of August 10, 1967, the General demonstrated that the liberation of “New France” was a necessary aspect of French foreign policy.

“Ordinarily, each of us- and this is very normal- is absorbed by the circumstances and demands of daily life and thus takes very little time to look at the whole of which they are a part, or what could become of our country. And yet, everything depends upon it […]. As in the tense situation in which the world finds itself, our peoples’ actions weigh heavily on her destiny. We have the opportunity today to ask what goals are necessary for the direction of the country and which path will best achieve them?

[…] Progress, independence and peace, are those goals which our political decisions must follow […] In this way, all that is realized in the development of the country, in whatever domain, at whatever moment, in any way, is fought in principle and without exception, all of the time, by those humble followers of its truth. The fact that France, without denying any friendship to Anglo American nations, but breaking with absurd conformity and outdated habits, takes a proper French position on the subject of the war in Viet Nam and the conflict in the Middle East, or- no later than yesterday- of the unanimous and powerful will to franchise that French Canadians manifested around the President of the French Republic, stupefied and indignant as they were to the apostles of decline.”

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