Legault’s inevitable resignation shuffles Quebec politics |
Quebec Premier François Legault announces his resignation during a news conference in Quebec City on Wednesday.Jacques Boissinot/The Canadian Press
François Legault’s days as Quebec premier have been numbered for a long time but his resignation, inevitable as it seemed, has nonetheless shuffled the cards of Quebec politics.
Mr. Legault had been visibly suffering from the wear and tear of seven years in power and the Coalition Avenir Québec, the party he founded as a kind of third way to skirt the old separatist-federalist dynamic of the province’s politics, seemed doomed.
Just a few months ago, it looked like Quebeckers were heading to an atavistic return to an old-school race between the separatist Parti Québécois and the federalist Quebec Liberals.
His government is still widely unloved, but the departure of Mr. Legault throws open the whole question of what the CAQ will be by October, when the next Quebec election will be held. Nobody knows what a CAQ without Mr. Legault looks like.