Vive le Québec libre speech

From Wikisource

Vive le Québec libre speech by Charles de Gaulle, translated by Wikisource

This edition was translated from the original French by Joshua Sherurcij in 2006.

It is a great emotion that fills my heart to see before me the French city of Montréal!

In the name of the old country, in the name of France, I salute you! I salute you with all my heart!

I would tell you a secret that you cannot repeat. Here this evening, and all the length of my trip, I found myself in the same sense of atmosphere as the Liberation! And all the length of my trip, in addition, I have noticed what immense efforts of progress, of development, and consequently of empowerment that you have accomplished here, and that it is to Montréal that I must give this statement, because, if there is a city in the world exemplerary of modern success, it is yours! I say it is yours, and I permit myself to say, it is ours!

If you knew what confidence France, waking up after immense troubles, now carries for you, if you knew what affection she has started to feel again for the Frenchmen of Canada, and if you knew to what point she feels obliged to further your march that is before you, to your progress.

It's why she has finalised with the Government of Quebec, with my friend Johnson here, the agreements for which the French on this side and the other of the Atlantic can work together towards the same French undertaking. And, of course, the aid that France brings here, each day a little more, she knows well that you will reciprocate because you are building the best factories, enterprises, laboratories, which will be an astonishment for all, and which, one day, I know you will allow to aid France.

This is what I have come this evening to say, and that I will bring back from this unforgettable Montréal reunion, an unforgetable souvenir! The entirety of France knows, sees, hears that which is happening here, and I would tell you, she is better for it!

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