Provincial Canadian political party founded in 1968 by René Lévesque and other French-Canadian separatists in the province of Quebec.
In the 1976 provincial election it won a majority in the Quebec assembly, which then decreed French as the province's only official language of government and business. After a separatist referendum on independence failed (1980), the party lost membership. The party revived in the 1990s, winning the provincial election in 1994. In 1995 the party held another referendum on secession, which was narrowly defeated.