The politics of French-Canada in the Quebec press

Perhaps even more than the American press, which envisions itself as the watchdog incarnate, the French-Canadian press has functioned as a mediator for survival of a language and a people who by all right never have had much of a chance to remain unassimilated. But in the process, Quebec's press has become a fighting press- almost paranoid at times. But their paranoia is grounded in the reality that English Canada had done a magnificent job of ensuring that the French-Canadian culture would not flourish outside Quebec. Canadian history is replete with incidents in which French Canadians have been forced to relinquish hope of making the whole of Canada their homeland - except in the English language. The end result has been that to a great many Quebec is of necessity the only bastion of French culture in North America. To them it can be no other way. Little wonder they place so much faith in the one province in which they are a majority. Little wonder they have fought so hard down through the years to prevent any federal iintrusion into their own jurisdiction. Any weakening of provincial autonomy is seen from Quebec as a direct threat to survival.