A leading French magazine’s special edition on Quebec’s 400th anniversary confused the founding of the city with that of the province. Even though the story should have been about Quebec City’s 400th birthday, the 30-page special doesn’t have a line about it.

Instead, it’s all about Montreal, its artists, its universities and its restaurants, a double slight because of the rivalry between the two cities.

The editor-in-chief of Paris Match admits the magazine got it wrong by leaving Quebec City out of the picture in the special edition, which hit newsstands in 120 countries yesterday.

Steve Faguy, a Montreal blogger and occasional copy editor at The Gazette, points to this quote from the magazine’s editor-in-chief:

“We didn’t know there was a competition between Quebec City and Montreal and to be honest, it doesn’t really matter to us and to our readers. But we now see that it is sensitive issue here.”

Agence France-Presse included some of the responses from French papers in a recent report:

“Paris Match honors Quebec… not really,” quipped the francophone daily Le Devoir after the French magazine published a special issue commemorating the anniversary but leaving Quebec City almost entirely out of the coverage, which focused in large part on its larger rival Montreal.

La Presse, another Montreal newspaper, declared it a “monumental gaffe,” while public broadcaster Radio-Canada suggested the “blunder” showed the French magazine was in the dark about the city and its eponymous province.

The English-language press also seized on the error, with the National Post saying Paris Match was obsessed with Montreal and its artists and restaurants — an affront to Quebec City whose rivalry with Montreal is “legendary.”

By way of apology, Paris Match editor-in-chief Gilles Martin-Chauffier said in Le Devoir: “We had no idea this was about the 400 years of Quebec (City), we thought it was about the founding of all of Quebec (province),” adding that the weekly will dedicate renewed coverage to the Quebec celebrations.

And here’s the predictable hockey reference from the story in The Gazette:

The rivalry between Quebec City and Montreal is legendary and it reached a climax when Quebec City still had a hockey team in the NHL. The Quebec Nordiques moved out of the city in 1995.

Paris-Match’s editor-in-chief has subsequently written a note for the publication’s website.