OTTAWA, Jan 14 (Reuters) – Quebec premier Francois Legault said on Wednesday he was resigning after more than seven years in office, months ahead of an election which a party seeking independence for the Canadian province looks set to win.<\/p>\n
Legault’s center-right Coalition Avenir Quebec party won elections in 2018 and 2022 but has struggled over the last year amid voter fatigue and a high-profile fight with doctors.<\/p>\n
Sign up here.<\/a><\/p>\n “A lot of people in Quebec want change, and among other things, a change of prime minister,” Legault told reporters in Quebec City.<\/p>\n “For the good of my party, and above all for the good of Quebec, I am announcing today that I will leave my position as prime minister of Quebec.”<\/p>\n Legault, 68, said he would stay in the job until the party chose a new leader. The next election in Quebec, the second most populous of the 10 provinces, must be held by October 5 and polls indicate an easy win for the separatist Parti Quebecois.<\/p>\n The PQ, which wants independence for Quebec, is promising to hold another referendum on splitting from Canada. Two previous such votes, in 1980 and 1995, both failed.<\/p>\n Although the PQ looks set to win, a series of polls over the last two years show a solid majority are against the idea of breaking from Canada.<\/p>\n Legault, a former airline executive, created the CAQ in 2011 and pressed for more powers for Quebec inside Canada rather than advocating an outright split.<\/p>\n During his time in office he repeatedly urged the federal government to stem the flow of refugees<\/a> crossing the border with the United States and to compensate Quebec for costs.<\/p>\n A Leger poll last month put the PQ on 35% public support, with the Liberals in second place on 20% and the CAQ in third place on 19%. Such a result on election day would give the PQ a majority of the 126 seats in the provincial legislature.<\/p>\n The provincial Liberals are also looking for a new leader after the previous incumbent quit last month.<\/p>\n Reporting by David Ljunggren, Editing by Franklin Paul and Nia Williams<\/p>\n Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles., opens new tab<\/a><\/p>\n Purchase Licensing Rights<\/a><\/a><\/p>\n Covers Canadian political, economic and general news as well as breaking news across North America, previously based in London and Moscow and a winner of Reuters\u2019 Treasury scoop of the year. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"OTTAWA, Jan 14 (Reuters) – Quebec premier Francois Legault said on Wednesday he was resigning after more than…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":284346,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[269],"tags":[82519,82499,36586,88928,38368,84897,91305,83399,82969,83116,18,440,45748,88436,19,17,83122,97938,82768,82565,82524,82507,82970,82508,88930,133,91303,82533,27763],"class_list":{"0":"post-284345","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-amers","9":"tag-bact","10":"tag-biz","11":"tag-boss1","12":"tag-ca","13":"tag-dbt","14":"tag-destocadnm","15":"tag-destocatpm","16":"tag-destouswdm","17":"tag-eco","18":"tag-eire","19":"tag-environment","20":"tag-gen","21":"tag-gvd","22":"tag-ie","23":"tag-ireland","24":"tag-mce","25":"tag-mmt","26":"tag-mngiss","27":"tag-mtpix","28":"tag-namer","29":"tag-news1","30":"tag-packageworld-news","31":"tag-pol","32":"tag-pplmov","33":"tag-science","34":"tag-topicworld-canada","35":"tag-topnws","36":"tag-vote"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115894895525260189","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284345","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=284345"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284345\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/284346"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=284345"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=284345"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=284345"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}