François Legault resigns as Quebec premier, will stay until CAQ names successor

Quebec premier François Legault announced his resignation as leader of the province at a hastily arranged press conference in Quebec City on Wednesday. Legault said he was proud to have founded the Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ) and to have won consecutive majority governments beginning in 2018, adding “Serving as premier was the greatest honour of my life,” to applause.

He will remain as premier until his party has chosen a new leader — a process that could take months — a timetable that leaves the CAQ little time to prepare for a November provincial election. The surprise departure follows months of chaos within the governing CAQ, during which key ministers and allies have stepped down and polling suggested the government faced long odds of re-election; some polls even suggested the party could lose all its seats.

The party has faced intense backlash over a law changing how doctors are paid, which cost Legault his health minister, Christian Dubé, and a snowballing scandal over attempts to modernise an online portal for licence renewals and vehicle registration that has suffered cost overruns in the hundreds of millions of dollars and prompted a public inquiry; cybersecurity minister Éric Caire resigned in February 2025.

Legault’s government also courted controversy by pursuing secularism as a legislative priority.

Key Topics

Politics, François Legault, Quebec, Coalition Avenir Québec, Christian Dubé, Parti Québécois