Le déserteur is a 2008 Quebec feature film directed by Simon Lavoie. The film stars Émile Proulx-Cloutier, Raymond Cloutier, Danielle Proulx, Viviane Audet, Benoît Gouin and Gilles Renaud.^[1][2]

It tells the story of Georges Guénette, a deserter from the Canadian Army during World War II, who was shot and killed by members of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

Background

Georges Guénette was a deserter from the Canadian Army and, like many French Canadians during World War II, an opponent of the war and conscription.

In May 1944, a few months after Guénette deserted from the army, four Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) officers found Guenette in his father's farmhouse, in St-Lambert-de-Lévis (near Quebec City). He jumped out of a window and ran across the fields. Guénette fell, wounded "by a ricocheting bullet," and died without the last rites of the church.^[3]

Two RCMP officers were later charged with manslaughter in Guénette's death, and the shooting was an issue in the 1944 Quebec general election.^[4]

References