 With roots in Quebec City, his paternal grandfather and his father, Claude, were physicians; Claude was an ENT surgeon who was friends with Parti Québécois founder René Lévesque.Nicolas and his sister lived with their mother in LeMoyne after their parents' separation when he was a young child.As a university student he worked four summers at the Île Sainte-Hélène municipal swimming pool before finding a summer job at Les Coopérants life insurance company in the internal audit department—his only experience in the financial sector before becoming Quebec's finance minister.