page_title: History of Quebec
section_title: 2000–present
hierarchical_section_title: History of Quebec / 2000–present
caption_attribution_description: Français&#160;: Pauline Marois participe à un événement partisan dans le quartier Limoilou de Québec à la veille de l'élection générale québécoise de 2012.
context_page_description: Quebec has played a special role in French history; the modern province occupies much of the land where French settlers founded the colony of Canada in the 17th and 18th centuries. The population is predominantly French-speaking and Roman Catholic, with a large Anglophone minority, augmented in recent years by immigrants from Asia. The political alienation of the Francophones from the Anglophones has been a persistent theme since the late 19th century. Tensions were especially high during the First World War. Historically, British merchants and financiers controlled the economy and dominated Montreal. The Catholic Church, in close cooperation with the landowners, led a highly traditional social structure in rural and small town Quebec. Much of that changed during the Quiet Revolution of the 1960s. Quebec's separatists, calling for an independent nation, gained strength but were narrowly defeated in two referenda. Quebec imposed increasingly stringent laws favouring the French language; many Anglophones left, as did many of the national and international corporations that had been based in Montreal. From 1966, Montreal's population fell until the 1980s, according to census data.
context_section_description: After winning the provincial election in 1998, Bouchard retired from politics in 2001. Bernard Landry was then appointed leader of the Parti Québécois and premier of Quebec. In 2003, Landry lost the election to the Quebec Liberal Party and Jean Charest. Landry stepped down as PQ leader in 2005, and in a crowded race for the party leadership, André Boisclair was elected to succeed him. He also resigned after the renewal of the Quebec Liberal Party's government in the 2007 general election and the Parti Québécois becoming the second opposition party, behind the Action Démocratique.
  On November 27, 2006, the House of Commons of Canada passed a motion recognizing that the "Québécois form a nation within a united Canada." The motion was introduced in the House of Commons by the federal government.
  Quebec elected Pauline Marois as its first female premier on September 4, 2012. Marois served as leader of the separatist Parti Québécois. The Parti Québécois was elected with a minority of seats in the province's legislative assembly, with remaining seats held by two federalist (non-separatist) parties. Shortly after the election, during a radio network interview in France, Marois stated that another referendum was not conceivable in the current circumstances, although she emphasized that she would support Quebec's interests.
  Marois called a provincial election for April 2014, during which her party was defeated by the Parti libéral du Québec (PLQ). The PLQ won by a large margin, securing a majority government. In the 2018 Quebec general election, the Coalition Avenir Québec defeated the Liberals, forming a majority government. François Legault is the current Premier.
  In May 2017, floods spread across southern Quebec, with Montreal declaring a state of emergency.
caption: Former Premier of Quebec Pauline Marois, campaigning before the September 2012 provincial election.
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