The FLQ and the Quebec October Crisis
The Liberation Cell
Various cells emerged, with names such as Viger, Dieppe, Louis Riel, Nelson and Saint-Denis, and they managed to pull off a number of robberies and explosions, including the 1969 bombing of the Montreal Stock Exchange and others at McGill University, perhaps Montreal's most prestigious Anglo institution, and at the home of the mayor of Montreal.
In August 1970, a number of the French-Canadian terrorists traveled to Jordan to train with Palestinian guerilla commandos. Two months later, the FLQ cells, called Liberation and Chenier, would become infamous for their involvement in the Cross and Laporte kidnappings.
The Liberation cell included leader Jacques Cossette-Trudel; his wife, Louise (Lanctôt) Cossette-Trudel; her brother, Jacques Lanctôt; Marc Carbonneau, Yves Langlois and Nigel Barry Hamer, a radical socialist Briton. Most were in their 20s. Carbonneau was a taxi driver. Jacques Lanctôt had joined the movement at age 17.
The Liberation cell was responsible for the kidnapping of James Cross, the first of the two abductions that touched off the October Crisis.