Pauline Marois has been beset by defections within the Parti Québécois and criticism from former leaders over the past few months, and now her summer appears to have gotten even worse.

A new hardline separatist group calling itself The New Movement for Quebec published a manifesto Tuesday calling for a new focus on independence based more on nationalist pride, rather than on creating a crisis with Canada to rile up the emotions of the people.

The manifesto panned the PQ's approach to sovereignty and Marois' leadership as being misguided and antiquated.

In fact, it says the very notion of sovereignty itself misses the point entirely.

"The world has undergone profound changes since 1970, but the sovereignty project has remained essentially the same," the manifesto reads. "We believe the problems it is facing today is not only due to its direction or level of militancy, nor is it due to the vehicle or strategies of communication. The problem is more profound and structural: this incarnation of a sovereignty project belongs to another era."

The manifesto was released as a call to arms to the movement's first general meeting to be held August 21 at 10 a.m. at the Cégep St-Laurent auditorium.

The movement's spokesman Jocelyn Desjardins said Tuesday the greater purpose is to trigger a discourse among the Quebec people, and to show the rest of Canada that separatist sentiment remains alive.

"If some people in Canada think that it's finished, it's not finished," he said. "It's just starting again. Citizens are talking again and we are coming back to what is essentially a real independence movement by the citizens."

Marois – already having dealt with one crisis this summer with the defection of five PQ MNAs who expressed varying degrees of satisfaction with her leadership – was forced to address this new attack while visiting victims of the Richelieu Vallley floods on Tuesday in Ste-Anne-de-Sabrevois.

"If this is the new way of doing politics, it makes me concerned for the future because divide and conquer doesn't appear to me to be a very good attitude to have," Marois said. "I think what is happening now is rather contemptuous to the thousands of people who believe in sovereignty. It is absolutely pointless to be divisive right now. We want to give ourselves a country and the best way to get there is to stand together in solidarity."

Marois reminded reporters that her "governance of sovereignty" was voted on by the approximately 1,800 delegates at the last general assembly of the PQ in April.

However, The New Movement for Quebec's manifesto took specific aim at that "governance of sovereignty" as being an approach that is lacking focus, or is at least misguided in focus.

"The basic premise is that only a crisis with Canada will boost popular support for sovereignty to levels comparable to 1990, following the death of the Meech Lake Accord," the manifesto reads. "The goal is a rejection of Canada, and reaction against Canada rather than an affirmation of our own existence. It would be creating a country against another one rather than a country that would create itself, for itself and by itself."

One of the five PQ MNAs who defected in June, Lisette Lapointe, said she supported the New Movement and said she would attend Sunday's meeting. Two others, Pierre Curzi and Jean-Martin Aussant, expressed interest in the movement's ideas.

The movement's document was signed by 235 people as of 7:30 p.m. Tuesday evening.

With files from The Canadian Press