Active between 1972 and 1982, the Parti acadien symbolized a bygone era, when it was possible to evoke a distinctly Acadian political project. Today, it is best remembered for its call to divide New Brunswick along a diagonal line from Grand Falls to Moncton, to create an eleventh Canadian province.

At the time of its founding, the Parti acadien had a rather heterogeneous program. Without officially committing itself to an Acadian province (this would not happen until 1977), it proposed a series of measures inspired both by nationalism, and by left-wing economics and environmentalism. At the same time, despite the presence of some Marxist-Leninists who would eventually leave the political party, most militants sought to maintain bridges between young people (often influenced by theories of Marxism and decolonization) and previous generations. This effort is perfectly illustrated by the Party's founding manifesto, extracts of which are included in the anthology. Of particular note is the manifesto’s treatment of the relationship between men and women, which the political party believed should be based on “equality in difference.” The involvement of a number of well-known Acadian women, such as education professor Simone LeBlanc Rainville, did not fundamentally change the political party’s orientation, which remained far removed from that of second-wave feminism.

The Parti acadien’s greatest electoral success came in 1978 when, during New Brunswick’s provincial election, Catholic priest Father Armand Plourde came close to winning the riding of Restigouche-Ouest. This provincial election took place at a time when a referendum on Quebec sovereignty (1980) was imminent, a circumstance which boosted the Parti acadien’s fortunes.

Even so, by the outset of the 1980s, the Parti acadien was falling apart. With a global economic recession, the adoption of a law on the equality of the two main linguistic communities in New Brunswick (1981) and the defeat of the Parti québécois in Quebec (in 1985), the climate was no longer conducive to such a political party. The fortunes of the Parti acadien – a rise in popularity in the 1970s, followed by a decline at the beginning of the following decade – mirrored that of many other nationalist movements in the West. Nonetheless, the Parti acadien succeeded in leaving its mark on New Brunswick’s political history, and remains, at least to some extent, part of the Acadian collective memory.