Several Canadian dailies hailed as historic Prime Minister Stephen Harper's pledge to acknowledge French-speaking Quebec as a "nation" within Canada, but some saw the comments as opportunistic.

"Harper drops a political bombshell," The Globe and Mail newspaper's headline read, a day after the conservative prime minister's surprise announcement that he had asked the House of Commons to recognize that "Quebecers constitute a nation within a united Canada."

"Do Quebecers form a nation within a united Canada? The answer is yes. Do Quebecers form an independent nation from Canada? The answer is no, and it will always be no," Harper had said.

The French-language daily La Presse said in an editorial that Harper's remark represented "historic progress," but another commentator in the same newspaper said it was purely a political maneuver.

The Globe and Mail, meanwhile, said that under any other circumstances, using the word "nation" would be a "terrible idea," but in this case, Harper "chose well."

Other English-language dailies were wary. The Toronto Star said Harper had chosen to "play a dangerous game" and had taken "unwarranted risks with the future of the country."

"The surprise bombshell that Harper dropped yesterday ... will never placate Quebec separatists, even as it potentially weakens Canada by handing them another argument the next time -- and there almost certainly will be a next time -- they seek to break up this country," the Star said in an editorial, alluding to an eventual third attempt at a referendum on independence for the francophone province.

Quebec has held and lost two referendums on seceding from the rest of Canada, in 1980 and 1995. Federalists won the second vote by a narrow margin.

Harper's surprise move, he said, was aimed at blocking "an unusual request" by the separatist Bloc Quebecois to define all Quebecers as a nation.