While French is the majority language in Quebec, it is a small minority in the rest of Canada and historically has and still faces demographic and economic pressures. Assimilation, which was the fate of the francophone culture of the former Louisiana Territory in the United States, is feared. The French language was discriminated against for a long time in Canada, even in Quebec. The Quebec government of the Liberal Party leader, Premier Robert Bourassa, passed the Official Language Act (Bill 22) in 1974, abolishing English as an official language and making French the sole official language of Quebec. In 1976, the Parti Québécois was voted in with René Lévesque, a major figure of the Quiet Revolution, becoming Premier of Quebec. The PQ rapidly enacted the Charter of the French Language (Bill 101). Many of the French Language Charter's provisions expanded on the 1974 Official Language Act. The protective language law outlawed the public display of English, making French signs obligatory, regulations that would later be overturned in the course of court challenges. A first referendum on sovereignty was held in 1980 (under the leadership of Lévesque the YES side lost with 40.44% of the votes), and a second in 1995 (with Lucien Bouchard, Jacques Parizeau and Mario Dumont as leaders, when the YES campaign narrowly lost at 49.42%).