Pur et dur

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Pur et dur (a common expression in French literally meaning "pure and hard") is a term used in Quebec politics to refer to so-called hardliners of the Parti Québécois and the Quebec independence movement. It is especially used in the media, which popularized it. It is also used to criticize the party. Some within the party resent the use of the term by the media, but some have embraced it. It is akin to the term "SNP fundamentalist", used in Scotland politics for a faction of the Scottish National Party, another pro-independence party.

Many of the first "purs et durs" came from the Rassemblement pour l'indépendance nationale who, through entryism, entered the Parti Québécois in its early days of the 1960s. They are mostly associated with strong opinions about independence (including the resolve and haste to attain it, the question of an eventual supranational union, or "sovereignty-association", the question of the "étapisme" approach) and language protection (see Charter of the French Language). Some also criticize the party for not being social democratic enough.

These militants have famously made the leadership of the Parti Québécois a testing task. The media has, at one time or another, tied the departure of every former PQ leader except Jacques Parizeau to an ousting from the "pur et dur", especially in the case of Pierre-Marc Johnson. Parizeau, a former Premier of Quebec, has sometimes been portrayed as "pur et dur" himself.

[edit] Examples

These are people having been portrayed by some as purs et durs, while this "status" is debatable.

Two notable exceptions are Guy Bertrand and Gilles Grégoire. Both are founding members of the Parti Québécois, but have (or had) come to be disowned by the purs et durs.

Bertrand was called, by René Lévesque, an "ayatollah in bedroom slippers," mostly because of his vigorous attempts get the PQ to declare unilateral independence. He later wrote that he an "intolerant, ethnocentric, egocentric" Québécois nationalism has been the bane of Quebec and Canada. A skilled lawyer, he has taken his anti-separatism cause to court several times.

Gilles Grégoire was a founding member and elected to the National Assembly twice, but was cast out when he was convicted of having sex with minor girls and sentenced to jail. He died in 2006.