ГУЛаг Палестины

the PQ in a by-election next spring, caused a furor earlier this month with his comments

about Jews and ethnic voters.

The party executive will meet in the new year to hear Mr. Michaud defend himself and

decide whether to bar his candidacy. It will be the first in a number of showdowns within

the party.

In February, it must take a position on toughening the province's language laws and define

a strategy to achieve sovereignty. Mr. Bouchard has made it known that he will not tolerate

any radical position on language, and has warned members to be patient about another

referendum.

He has also said he favours blocking Mr. Michaud's candidacy.

The Premier will have to deal with the mounting frustrations or face a confrontation.

The split within sovereigntist ranks blew up in public this week as prominent separatist

leaders, including former premier Jacques Parizeau and Bloc Quйbйcois Leader Gilles

Duceppe, said Mr. Bouchard's PQ caucus had no right to support a motion in the National

Assembly reprimanding Mr. Michaud.

"The Parti Quйbйcois is divided in the same way Quebec society is divided," party

vice-president Marie Malavoy said Tuesday. "The party didn't close the door on his

candidacy ... but we have to discuss it as soon as possible."

Mr. Michaud outraged the Jewish community for stating that Jews were not the only ones

in the history of humanity to suffer. He also said there is an anti-sovereignty ethnic vote,

pointing to 12 polls in the Montreal suburb of Cфte-Saint-Luc, which has a high

concentration of Jewish residents, where everyone voted against sovereignty in the 1995

referendum. He also called the B'nai Brith, an influential Jewish-rights organization,

extremist and anti-sovereigntist.

Mr. Duceppe said Tuesday that he disagreed with Mr. Michaud's comments, but that the

National Assembly had no business condemning him for them. "It could be very

hazardous, if not dangerous, for the National Assembly to hand out blame like that," he

said. "It is one thing to ask a member of the National Assembly to apologize or withdraw

what he said, like we do in Ottawa. But when it's not a member of that assembly, I think

there are tribunals that can judge whether it was correct or not."

In a full-page letter in Le Devoir Tuesday, 30 prominent sovereigntists, including Mr.

Parizeau, accused the National Assembly of attempting to gag Mr. Michaud and denying

him his right to freedom of speech.

"We the undersigned, consider there is a real misuse of the role of the National Assembly,

a serious attack on the rights and freedoms of citizens and a violation of the Charter," they

wrote in French. It is "a flagrant act of injustice and a stunning show of arbitrary authority of

which every citizen can from now on fear of becoming the victim."

In interviews Monday, Mr. Parizeau compared Mr. Bouchard's defence of the National

Assembly's position to the type of authoritarian actions taken in the era of premier Maurice

Duplessis. "When I was young the Duplessis regime was in place. And a system that

demands that you either believe or die with pressures to adopt this or that, you can be sure

that I can see a throwback to that era. And that is why I protest," he said. "What Mr. Michaud

said was clumsy, especially from someone who wants to be a candidate. But there is

nothing in what he said to make a fuss about."

At least two PQ caucus members, Diane Barbeau and Jean-Claude St-Andrй, have

expressed regret about supporting the motion in the National Assembly.

However, cabinet ministers and most caucus members refused to comment. Mr. Bouchard

staunchly defended the National Assembly's reprimand Tuesday.

"My view is that he [Mr. Michaud] should not be a candidate for the Parti Quйbйcois," Mr.

Bouchard said after a caucus meeting. "If he withdraws [his remarks], it will clear the air

and we could take a second look at it."

He condemned Mr. Michaud's comparison of the suffering of Jews and the plight of

Quebec sovereigntists. "When we know how an entire people was treated, how they were

treated worse than cattle, people who were separated from their families, their children

taken from them, jammed into trains and transported like garbage to concentration camps

where after incredible suffering they were thrown into gas chambers and the ovens, we

cannot speak lightly of these matters," he said.

Although Mr. Michaud said he did not mean to make light of the Holocaust, Mr. Bouchard

said perception was created.

He also criticized Mr. Michaud for "resurrecting the spectre of the ethnic vote", in effect

denouncing remarks made by Mr. Parizeau on the night of the 1995 referendum. Mr.

Parizeau blamed "money and the ethnic vote" for that loss.

"I am convinced this is an attack against people who don't deserve to be treated this way,"

Mr. Bouchard said.

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"Someone who has provoked the Jewish community for years

should expect this sort of thing [a vicious, near-fatal beating]."

- Nazi-hunter Serge Klarsfeld on the savage attack against Professor Faurisson