Le « Préambule » à la « Déclaration de souveraineté »: penser la foundation au-delà de la « matrice théologico-politique »?

Abstract

AbstractA little less than two months before the referendum on sovereignty on October 31, 1995, the Quebec government made public a “Preamble” to an eventual “Declaration of Sovereignty.” This document is analyzed in this article as a “foundational narrative,” that is to say as a narrative attempting to make of this event, which represents the accession of Quebec to sovereignty, a “beginning.” The author demonstrates that the document remains caught in a rhetoric which associates itself to what can be called, following the work of Claude Lefort and Marcel Gauchet, the “theologico-political matrix,” which could explain its chilled reception even by sovereigntists. The author asks in conclusion if it is possible to envisage a foundational narrative which would be compatible with the profound logic which governs modernity.