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Claude Charron (1946- )
Several men and women involved in politics were advocates in student associations long before joining a political party and becoming candidates. One need only think of Louise Harel, Bernard Landry, Gilles Duceppe, Jean Doré and Claude Charron. The latter occupied the positions of Director of National Affairs at the Université de Montréal students' association and Vice-president of International Affairs at the Union générale des étudiants du Québec. In 1969, he and Pierre Bédard co-authored a feature entitled "Les étudiants québécois. La contestation permanente", a special edition of the new, leftist magazine, Noir et rouge. He described the history of the student movement and their demands. At the time he wrote this feature article, he was teaching at the Édouard-Montpetit and Vieux-Montréal Cegeps.
Charron pushed his activism one step further, becoming a founding member of the Mouvement souveraineté-association (MSA) that rapidly transformed itself into a political party known as the Parti québécois, in 1968. He was one of the rare party candidates to be elected in 1970. He was re-elected three times thereafter. He left politics in 1982. In 1987, he embarked on a brilliant career in the media world.
