Rene Levesque, Quebec’s Separatist Leader, Dies at 65

Former Quebec Premier Rene Levesque, a leader in the province’s failed fight to secede from Canada, died of a heart attack Sunday night. He was 65.

“He had heart problems,” a Montreal police spokesman, Constable Marcel Allard, said. “He was rushed to hospital and died.”

Levesque reportedly suffered a heart attack around 9 p.m. while entertaining guests in his home.

Attempts by ambulance attendants and doctors at the Montreal General Hospital to revive him were unsuccessful.

In Ottawa, Bruce Phillips, a spokesman for Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, said the prime minister was shocked and saddened by Levesque’s death.

“While he and the premier had very different views about the kind of Canada they wanted, he admired Rene Levesque’s profound respect for democracy and never doubted that he was a great champion of Quebec’s interests,” Phillips said.

“Rene Levesque was one of the most influential Canadians of his time.”

The chain-smoking Levesque was premier of Quebec from 1976 to 1985. A one-time Cabinet minister under Liberal Premier Jean Lesage, Levesque broke away and formed his own movement in 1967, which became the Parti Quebecois a year later. The party advocated the secession of Quebec from the rest of Canada.

At the root of the movement was the belief that without autonomy, the French culture in Quebec would not survive. Eighty-two percent of Quebecers are French speakers.

It was under Levesque’s leadership that a 1980 referendum was held on the issue. Quebec voters, however, rejected the option of sovereignty-association. Despite the referendum defeat, Levesque easily won a second term in office in 1981.

By 1985, with his party’s fortunes at an all-time low in public popularity, Levesque resigned as head of the party under pressure from party members. His personal popularity among Quebecers, however, remained high.

Before entering politics in 1960, Levesque had worked as a newspaper and broadcast journalist. He was born on Aug. 24, 1922, and grew up on Quebec’s Gaspe Peninsula, a member of a French family in a largely English-speaking town.

His first job was at a local radio station translating English news dispatches into French and reading them on the air. Toward the end of World War II, Levesque dropped out of law school and became a French-language broadcaster for the U.S. Office of War Information, traveling with American forces through Europe.

Levesque spent his first year out of politics writing his memoirs. This year, Levesque returned to work as a broadcast journalist in Quebec, covering provincial politics.

His last public appearance was Friday night, when he showed up at a photo opportunity before a fund-raising literary dinner.

Levesque is survived by his second wife, the former Corinne Cote, his former appointments secretary whom he married in a secret ceremony April 13, 1979, after divorcing his first wife, Louise L’Heureux, earlier that year.

He had three children by his first marriage, Pierre, Claude and Suzanne.