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The party was created when a group of nationalist Liberals who had quit the Liberal Party of Quebec in 1934 and formed Action libérale nationale (ALN) joined with the Conservative Party of Quebec (led by Duplessis), to form the Union Nationale.
The Union Nationale was strongly aligned with the clergy in the province and dominated Quebec politics during the Duplessis years using repressive measures such as the Padlock Law to suppress opposition and particularly the trade unions.
The victory of Jean Lesage's Liberals in 1960 ushered in the Quiet Revolution and while the Union Nationale won power once more in 1966 under Daniel Johnson, the province had changed irrevocably and the party was not able to modernize itself and adapt to the changes in Quebec society.
The party collapsed in the years following the death of Johnson in 1968. Johnson's successor Jean-Jacques Bertrand was unable to inspire voters and his party was decisively defeated in the 1970 election and wiped out entirely in the 1973 election. Although the Union Nationale made a modest recovery in the 1976 election, winning 11 seats, it never won another seat in any subsequent election and no longer exists. Mounting demands for Quebec's independence from Canada had resulted in the nationalist vote moving to the new separatist Parti Quebecois, winner of the 1976 election.