What was the Front de libération du Québec?

The Front de libération du Québec (FLQ) was a Quebec separatist and revolutionary movement active from 1963 to 1970 that planted bombs, robbed banks, and conducted kidnappings in pursuit of Quebec independence. About 200 to 300 FLQ members carried out about 200 violent incidents that killed at least 8 people. The FLQ's most consequential single action was the October Crisis of 1970, after which the movement collapsed. The FLQ is widely regarded as the most significant terrorist movement in modern Canadian history.

The FLQ was founded in February to March 1963 in Montreal, drawing on radical left-wing and Quebec nationalist traditions. Founding members included Georges Schoeters (a Belgian-born communist), Raymond Villeneuve, and Gabriel Hudon. Early FLQ activities (1963 to 1966) included bombing campaigns against Canadian military and federal symbols. The first death came on April 20, 1963 when a bomb killed Wilfred Vincent O'Neill, a watchman at the Canadian Forces Recruitment Centre in Montreal. The April 5, 1966 bombing at the LaGrenade Shoe Company in Montreal killed secretary Thérèse Morin.

The FLQ operated in autonomous cells (the Liberation Cell, the Chénier Cell, the Pierre Vallières Cell, the Dieppe Cell, and others) rather than as a unified organisation. Major incidents included the February 13, 1969 bombing of the Montreal Stock Exchange (injuring 27); the June 24, 1968 Saint-Jean-Baptiste Day Riot in Montreal (which Pierre Trudeau attended without leaving his reviewing stand); and the February 26, 1970 bombing of the Royal Bank of Canada in Montreal. The FLQ's intellectual leaders including Pierre Vallières (author of 'Nègres blancs d'Amérique', 1968) and Charles Gagnon explained the movement as a Quebec national-liberation struggle modelled on Algerian and Cuban revolutions.

The October Crisis of 1970 was the FLQ's last major operation. The FLQ Manifesto, broadcast by Radio-Canada on October 7, 1970, attacked Quebec's Anglo-Canadian establishment and called for a Quebec workers' republic. After Pierre Laporte's murder on October 17, 1970, Quebec public opinion turned decisively against the FLQ. The Cross and Laporte kidnappers were eventually captured or exiled to Cuba. By 1971 the FLQ as an active organisation had effectively ceased to exist. Many former FLQ members eventually adopted democratic separatist politics under the Parti Québécois (founded in 1968). The FLQ's discrediting of political violence actually strengthened the democratic Quebec sovereignty movement that produced the 1980 and 1995 Quebec referendums. The FLQ remains a deeply contested historical memory in Quebec, with most former members having reintegrated into democratic Quebec society.