Legault Said "All French Canadians" Are Catholic & Many Wonder What Happened To "Laïcité"

• Quebec Premier François Legault said that "all French Canadians" are Catholic in a conversation with the governor of California.
• Hundreds have taken to Twitter to discuss the claim, with many taking issue with the generalization and others pointing out what they see as Legault's hypocrisy.
• Watch the video of the interaction and see the Twitter reactions below!
• Visit MTLBlog for more headlines.

In a very strange turn of events, Quebec Premier François Legault has been caught on video telling the Governor of California, Gavin Newsom, that "all French Canadians" are Catholic during a photo op as part of his visit to the U.S. state this week. The visit thus far has centred a lot around the environment and the tech industry, but for some reason, Legault felt the need to bring up Newsom's religion. In the video, which you can see below, Legault seems to bring up Newsom's Catholicism out of nowhere, likely inferring his religion due to his Irish heritage. 

When Newsom delicately confirms his religious upbringing, Legault quickly assures him, "me, too."

"All French Canadians are."

Legault then even brought up religious symbols, though it did seem to be a joke, which Newsom was quick to side-step, saying, "Oh I know, that's a whole issue for you guys, I don't want to get into that!"

Needless to say... Twitter has come to life with reactions. Take a look.

Legault tweeted out the following pictures after the incident saying, "I want to thank the Governor of California @GavinNewsom for his warm welcome to Sacramento. We had productive discussions on developing a greener economy, the carbon market, and possible partnerships in the transportation industry."

The video above shows the... bizarre interaction.

Of course, a lot of people were initially just very confused and a little pissed off that the premier of the province would go and tell a governor in another country a blatant generalization of his people.

Translation: Is he not the PM of all? Why is he talking about religion abroad? This lie will again resonate among Anglo and non-Catholics as divisive nationalist identity propaganda. Legault should know through his years of political experience.

And, unsurprisingly, this interaction inevitably came around to the conversation surrounding Bill 21, Legault's infamous religious symbols ban for public servants. 

Many, many Québécois, both francophone and anglophone, took to Twitter to explain their own religious beliefs — or, otherwise, to just straight up say they aren't Catholic.

Translation: I like Mr. Legault but, no, we aren't all Catholic.

Even fans of Legault spoke out, saying that this statement was a little bit of a stretch.

This tweet below might be my favourite, particularly because of the Californie/Califournie pun. Translation below.

Summary of Legault's trip to "Califournie":

👉 Twitter photos: 46

👉 Non-secular gaffe: 1

👉 Contract: $0

And a lot of people were just confused as to why this topic came up at all, considering it's certainly not the reason for the visit and seemed to crop up out of nowhere.

But perhaps the best part of all of this is the new hashtag we can all enjoy, #AllFrenchCanadians.

Because, of course, a whole population of people can be described in one fell swoop!