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L’Action française was a monthly magazine published from 1917 to 1928 in Montreal. Led by the abbé Lionel Groulx from 1920 onward, the publication shared the clerical and nationalist vision of the Ligue des droits du français (later the Ligue d’action française). It notably advocated the rights of the French Canadian minority in Canada, including the protection of the French language.
Magazine History
L’Action française was the voice of a group of priests and nationalists who comprised the Ligue des droits du français, an organization formed in 1913 to protect the French language. In 1920, the Abbé Lionel Groulx became the group's leader, and in 1921 it became the Ligue d'Action française. The group published the annual Almanach de la langue française, intended for a broader public, and ran a publishing house and a bookstore.
In 1928 the magazine changed its name to L’Action canadienne-française in an attempt to move away from the far-right nationalist and royalist French movement of the same name.
Values
In 1922 L’Action française nationalists flirted with the idea of political independence (see Sovereignty) but by 1927 had come out in favour of greater respect for the rights of the French Canadian minority within Canadian confederation.
League members deplored the economic weakness of their compatriots and the growth of American investments in Quebec (see also Canadian-American Relations); but, worried by the social changes wrought by industrialization and urbanization, most of them argued that agriculture was the way to promote the economic independence of French Canadians.
