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Immense peine ce soir. L'homme de ma vie est parti. Tout en douceur, entouré de plein d'amour… Infinie tristesse et un vide immense… — Lisette Lapointe (@LapointeLisette) June 2, 2015

In a career-ending slag on referendum night, Parizeau blamed “money and the ethnic vote” for the loss and was roundly criticized to the point that he resigned as premier a day later.

“That night was a tragedy for him and for us,” Jean-Francois Lisee, one of Parizeau’s key advisers at the time, said in a 2006 interview on the public Tele-Quebec network.

“It was brute emotion. (The referendum) was a big step forward but all he saw was his failure to take the next step. And that anger came out.”

Parizeau, one of the most influential Quebecers of his generation, had never minced words.

He was outspoken, sometimes to the point of making his audience cringe, but love him or hate him, there was no question of where Parizeau stood — unabashedly in favour of Quebec sovereignty.

“To try to orient one’s life toward having and building one’s country, I think is a very worthwhile purpose,” he said in an interview after the 1995 referendum loss.

Parizeau hailed from a prominent family in the upscale Montreal suburb of Outremont. His grandfather was the head of the Quebec Chamber of Notaries and his father was a historian and author as well as the president of an insurance company.

Parizeau studied at the Universite de Montreal’s highly regarded business school as well as in Paris.

He was also schooled at the prestigious London School of Economics in the 1950s, where he picked up a number of British affectations such as a penchant for three-piece bankers’ suits, expressions like “By Jove!” and a gruff British tinge to his accent when he spoke English.