O>n December 17, Quebec public-sector unions organized in the Common Front reached a tentative agreement with the government of Premier Philippe Couillard.

The agreement followed an explosive fall filled with rotating regional public-sector strikes and anti-austerity protests that culminated in the largest general strike in Quebec’s history, when more than four hundred thousand workers stayed off the job and shut down most government services on December 9.

The wave of militancy forced the Liberal Party’s Couillard to back down from his most extreme demands for concessions in negotiations with the unions. Trumpeting the need for a zero-deficit budget, he had offered only a 3 percent wage hike over a five-year contract, while demanding an increase in the retirement age to sixty-two, along with a long list of givebacks in working conditions.