FROM THE CHURCH-NATION TO THE NATION-STATE (1945-1968) FRENCH QUEBEC FACING THE CHALLENGE OF IMMIGRATION

Beginning in the 1960s, the Quebec provincial government gradually replaced the Catholic Church in the sectors of social regulation such as education, health care and social services. However among the numerous causes that can explain this profound transformation of Quebec society, immigration is rarely mentioned. In the aftermath of the Second World War, a new discourse appeared among the Catholic clergy, the French Canadian elites and the nationalist press who called for an increased intervention by the provincial government in the immigration field. The emergence of this new discourse is caused by new socio-demographic conditions unfavourable to the French-speaking majority which raise fears in the long term of its minorization. This study attempts to show how the immigration issue brought to question the role of the Catholic Church in the reception and integration of immigrants and has prepared the transition from a traditionalist nationalism to a political, linguistic and secular nationalism, embodied by the figure of the Provincial State.