Je me souviens

Je me souviens (French pronunciation: ​[ʒə mə suˈvjɛ̃]) is the official motto of Quebec, a province of Canada. The motto means "I remember".

Origins

In 1883, Eugène-Étienne Taché, Assistant Commissioner for Crown lands in Quebec and architect of the provincial Parliament building had the motto carved in stone below the coat of arms of Quebec which appears above the Parliament Building's main entrance door. The motto then came into official use, even though the coat of arms was not adopted until 1939.

Meaning

Taché appears not to have left an explanation of the motto's intended meaning. He did however write a letter to Siméon Lesage, showing what he intended to accomplish with the statues on the building's façade and describing what they were intended to remind people of.

All around the Parliament building, are 24 statues of historical figures. They originally included founders (Jacques Cartier, Samuel de Champlain and de Maisonneuve), clerics (de Laval, de Brébeuf, Marquette and Olier), military men (de Frontenac, Wolfe, de Montcalm and de Levis), Amerindians, French governors (D'Argenson, de Tracy, de Callières, de Montmagny, d'Aillesbout, de Vaudreuil) and, in the words of Taché, "some English governors the most sympathetic to our nationality" (Murray, Dorchester, Prevost and Bagot) and Lord Elgin, who was given a special place for he was seen as an important player in obtaining "responsible government". Taché purposely left blank spaces to allow future generations to add their own statues.

Je me souviens (2002 film)

Je me souviens is a 2002 documentary film about antisemitism and pro-Nazi sympathies in Quebec during the 1930s through post World War II made by Montreal filmmaker Eric Richard Scott. The title of the film is French for I remember, and is the official motto of Quebec. The film was inspired by The Traitor and the Jew (1992-1993), a history of Quebec from 1929-1939, showing the links among antisemitism, nationalism and fascism among Quebec Catholic intellectuals.

Background

Eric Scott's documentary film was inspired by the 1993 book The Traitor and the Jew: Anti-Semitism and the Delirium of Extremist Right-Wing Nationalism in French Canada from 1929-1939, by Dr. Esther Delisle, a history that revealed the prevalence of antisemitic and extreme right-wing ideology within mainstream French Canadian nationalist thought during the 1930s and 1940s. The book was published in French in 1992.

Scott's documentary notes that antisemitism existed in other parts of Canada, but it was particularly intense in Quebec. It was promoted by the Roman Catholic Church, in which almost every French Canadian had been reared since the colonial era, and which controlled the Quebec education system. Publications such as Jules-Paul Tardivel's La Vérité (journal), L'Action sociale, and La Semaine religieuse disseminated anti-Jewish views throughout the province. In the 1920s, the essays against Jews of the influential priest and intellectual Lionel Groulx influenced other clerics and teachers.

Je me souviens (2009 film)

Je me souviens is a 2009 French-Canadian (Quebec) film written and directed by André Forcier and produced by Les Films du Paria.

The film is set in 1949, when Maurice Duplessis was premier of Quebec and in the context of a union election in the Abitibi region.

References

External links