Anti-monarchists have heckled Britain’s Prince William and his wife Catherine in Quebec during their Canadian tour with chants of ‘Down with the monarchy!’
‘We will never bend, Willy go home!’ some 60 protesters shouted outside a Montreal children's hospital the royal couple visited. ‘French Quebec!’ and ‘Parasite go home!’ they chanted.
The group pounded on buckets as the couple entered the hospital without acknowledging them, drowning out a much larger group of well-wishers, many of whom cried out ‘We love you Kate!’
More protests are expected on the royal couple's next stop in Quebec City today.
Britain conquered Quebec, a former French colony, in 1763, but its culture and language survived and today it is a bastion of French culture in North America.
British rule, however, still evokes resentment in some quarters of the Canadian province.
Yesterday's demonstration was organised by a group whose stated objective is the defence of the French language in North America.
Its president, Mario Beaulieu, said the duke and duchess's visit ‘raises the issue of francophone assimilation,’ as well as ‘the linguistic purging of Quebec, in which the Canadian government is complicit.’
According to Beaulieu, the monarchy ‘is an obsolete institution, anti-democratic and sexist, and Quebec wants none of it.’
A poll released on the eve of the duke and duchess's visit found that a third of Canadians want to cut ties with the British monarchy.
In Quebec, where 83% of the population speaks French and only 10% speak English, disaffection with the royals runs as high as 60%, according to the Angus Reid survey.
As a member of the Commonwealth, Canada's official head of state is the British monarch, Queen Elizabeth II, who is represented by a governor general.
Quebec twice rejected independence in referendums in 1980 and 1995, the last time by a narrow margin.
Separatists would like to hold a third vote, but recent infighting has marred their organisation.
