QUEBEC CITY, Canada (AFP) — Quebec re-elected its right-wing governing party Monday, after a heated campaign in which the party leadership pushed claims that immigration threatened the French-speaking province's culture.

With 41 percent of the vote and 89 seats in the 125-seat Quebec National Assembly, the Coalition Avenir Quebec, a right-wing Quebec nationalist party led by current Premier Francois Legault, won by a landslide.

The nationalist party, in office for the past four years, had made declarations blaming immigrants in part for the decline of the French language in the province.

Final results showed the party, founded in 2011, beat its 2018 results, when it won 74 out of 125 seats with just over 37 percent of the vote.

Trailing a distant second was the center-left Liberal Party of Quebec, with 22 seats, the worst results for the party that ruled Quebec for nearly 15 years before 2018.

"Quebecers have sent a strong message," Legault said after the results came in, promising "to be the premier of all Quebecers" after the divisive campaign.