MONTREAL — The Liberal Party won Quebec’s legislative elections Monday, in a crushing defeat for the main separatist party and major setback for the cause of independence in the French-speaking province.

Official results Monday showed the Liberals, staunch supporters of Canadian unity, won or were leading the race in about 75 of the of National Assembly’s 125 seats, outstripping the separatist Parti Quebecois.

Those results will allow the Liberals to form a majority government, less than 18 months after voters had booted the party from power for the first time in nine years.

Quebec Premier Pauline Marois, who led a minority government, called the snap elections last month in the hopes of securing a majority for her PQ party. But the campaign stirred up speculation that a PQ majority would ultimately lead to another referendum on independence from Canada, an idea that has lacked support in recent years.

Fears of a referendum galvanized supporters of the Liberals.

Marois had tried to mute talk of another referendum on independence. She had hoped instead to make the election about the PQ’s proposed “charter of values,” a controversial but popular law that would ban public employees from wearing Muslim headscarves and other overt religious symbols.

But the strategy backfired early in the campaign when one PQ candidate, multi-millionaire media baron Pierre Karl Peladeau, burst onto the scene with a fist-pumping declaration of his commitment to “make Quebec a country.”

Peladeau congratulated Liberal leader and new premier Philippe Couillard.

“We have mixed feelings. The result throughout Quebec is not the one we would have wished,” said Peladeau, who won his district.

Couillard has vowed to return the Canadian flag to the legislature. The PQ has always removed flag when elected.

Quebec has had two referendums on sovereignty. The last such vote, in 1995, narrowly rejected independence.

Quebec, which is 80 percent of French-speaking, has plenty of autonomy already. The province of 8.1 million sets its own income tax, has its own immigration policy favoring French speakers, and has legislation prioritizing French over English.

But many Quebecois have long dreamed of an independent Quebec, as they at times haven’t felt respected and have worried about the survival of their language in English-speaking North America.

The outcome is also likely to bury the PQ’s hopes of passing the charter of values, which the Liberals oppose.

The law would forbid government employees from wearing Muslim headscarves, Jewish kippas, Sikh turbans and larger-than-average crucifixes. It would also prohibit citizens from covering their faces while receiving public services, such as applying for driver’s licenses, for the purpose of identification.

Protests against the proposal have drawn thousands of Muslims, Sikhs and Jews to Montreal’s streets to denounce what they call an affront on religious freedom.

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