Here is the video clip of
Charles de Gaulle's Vive le Québec libre ! speech. Scroll down for
the transcript.
It follows the English
translation of the transcript
from Charles de Gaulle's Long Live Free Québec! speech, delivered at City Hall,
Montréal,
Canada - July 24, 1967.
It is a great
emotion that fills my heart to see before me the
French city of
Montréal.
In the name of the old country, in the name of
France, I salute you! I salute you with all my
heart.
I would tell you a secret that you cannot
repeat. Here this evening, and all the length of
my trip, I found myself in the same sense of
atmosphere as the Liberation.
And all the length
of my trip, in addition, I have noticed what
immense efforts of progress, of development, and
consequently of empowerment that you have
accomplished here, and that it is to Montréal
that I must give this statement, because, if
there is a city in the world exemplary of modern
success, it is yours. I say it is yours, and I
permit myself to say, it is ours.
If you knew what confidence France, waking up
after immense troubles, now carries for you, if
you knew what affection she has started to feel
again for the Frenchmen of Canada, and if you
knew to what point she feels obliged to further
your march that is before you, to your progress!
It's why she has finalized with the Government
of Quebec, with my friend Johnson here, the
agreements for which the French on this side and
the other of the Atlantic can work together
towards the same French undertaking.
And, of course, the aid that France brings here,
each day a little more, she knows well that you
will reciprocate because you are building the
best factories, enterprises, laboratories, which
will be an astonishment for all, and which, one
day, I know you will allow to aid France.
This is what I have come this evening to say,
and that I will bring back from this
unforgettable Montréal reunion, an unforgettable
souvenir. The entirety of France knows, sees,
hears that which is happening here, and I would
tell you, she is better for it.
