Election call spurs students to action

Used with Creative Commons permission from LeStudio1.com’s Flickr

In case you’ve been living under a rock — or, you know, you were outside of Quebec yesterday, with zero access to conventional means of communication — you’re aware that Premier Jean Charest pulled the trigger and called a provincial election for Sept. 4. And you probably expected it.

Twitter, predictably, has since been abuzz with commentary from proponents of all parties and those who hate them all equally. And, not to be outdone, #manifencours, the hashtag synonymous with the student movement, was back in force last night, when a thousand protesters took to the streets with pots and pans clanging, as Christopher Curtis of The Montreal Gazette reports. A demonstrator sporting a Charest mask was the victim of what, at first glance, seems like the most politically minded hit-and-run in history.

But the real Charest is a battle-hardened figure ready for a tough month of campaigning, The Gazette’s Philip Authier suggests. He’s already attacking former FECQ president Léo Bureau-Blouin, the Parti Québecois candidate in the Laval-des-Rapides riding, says the Globe and Mail. It also reports that francophone voters could be the PQ’s ticket to the Assemblée Nationale, according to an exclusive poll compiled for the Globe and Mail that puts 43 per cent of franco votes behind the party. And though it may not be at the fore, sovereignty is still on party leader Pauline Marois’s mind, The Gazette says.■