French Canadian

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"Canadiens" redirects here. For the ice hockey team, see Montreal Canadiens.

French Canadian or Canadiens historically refers to inhabitants of Canada who can trace their ancestry to the original French settlers of what is now the Province of Quebec. In a contemporary context, it may also refer to francophone (French-speaking) Canadians. With the exception of the Acadians who have a distinct history, most French Canadians find their ancestry among agriculturalists from France who colonized the area that is now Quebec during Canada's colonial period starting in the 17th century.

Franco-Canadian is a similar term but does not imply longstanding ancestry on Canadian soil. It is sometimes used to designate recent immigrants from France or other French-speaking countries.

Francophone Canadians are found across Canada. Six million of Canada's French speakers are found in the province of Quebec, where they constitute the majority language group, and another one million are distributed throughout the rest of Canada. Roughly 31 per cent of Canadian citizens are French-speaking and 25 per cent are of French-Canadian descent. Not all French speakers are of French descent, especially in modern-day Quebec, and not all people of French-Canadian heritage are exclusively or primarily French-speaking.

Francophone cultures are an integral part of Canadian culture and of Canadian literature.

1 French Canadian groups
- 1.1 Quebec
- 1.2 Elsewhere in Canada
2 History
3 Modern usage
4 Organizations
- 4.1 National
5 French-Canadian flags
6 See also

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French Canadian groups

French Canadians may be grouped geographically by their province of origin:

Québécois(e), province of Quebec (many no longer identify as French Canadian)
Franco-Terreneuvians, province of Newfoundland and Labrador
Franco-Ontarians, province of Ontario
Franco-Manitobans, province of Manitoba
Fransaskois, province of Saskatchewan
Franco-Albertans, province of Alberta
Franco-Columbians, province of British Columbia
Franco-Yukonnais, territory of Yukon
Franco-Tenois, territory of Northwest Territories
Franco-Nunavois, territory of Nunavut

The Acadians in the Maritime Provinces and the Métis are not classified as French Canadians, but as distinct francophone peoples.

There is also a Franco-American community in the United States, particularly in New England, but also in Michigan and the Midwest, who are predominantly descended from French Canadians, though some have Acadian roots, especially on the border between Maine and New Brunswick. Cajuns in Louisiana stem primarily from the Acadian populations deported from Nova Scotia in the 1750's, though several settlers came from Quebec, St. Domingue (Haiti), Mobile Alabama, or directly from France.

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Quebec

In Quebec, the term "French Canadian" has become increasingly repudiated since the rise of contemporary Quebec nationalism during the Quiet Revolution of the 1960's. All public institutions attached to the Quebec state exclusively refer to Quebec citizens as Québécois.

This is a reflection of the strong social, cultural, and political ties that most Quebeckers of French-Canadian origin, who constitute a majority of francophone Quebecers, maintain within Quebec. Because Québécois also signifies any settled resident of Quebec -- a civic signifier -- this post-Quiet-Revolution use of the term as an ethnic signifier for French Canadians has introduced an ambiguity into the term's meaning which has often played out in political issues. This ambiguity is most famously symbolized in Quebec popular culture in a scene from Pierre Falardeau's film, Elvis Gratton.

Today, the term Québécois (masculine) or Québécoise (feminine) is often preferred by individuals in expressing their cultural and national identity, whether in both English and French. For the younger generations of francophones, the English term "French Canadian" is either not known at all or discovered later on in life if they learn English and interact with Anglophones. Francophones who self-identify as Québécois and do not have French or French Canadian ancestry do not recognize themselves in the "French Canadian" designation and those who do have French or French Canadian ancestry recognize the origin of the French expression Canadien français which is considered archaic.

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Elsewhere in Canada

There are many urban and small centres in Canada outside of Quebec that have significant populations of French Canadians. They include, but are not restricted to the following;

Here, francophones have enjoyed minority language rights under the Canadian Constitution since 1982, protecting them from provinicial governments that have historically been indifferent or downright hostile towards their presence. Consequently, French Canadian outside Quebec identify more strongly as Canadian than with their province of origin and more readily identify as French Canadian.

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History

The French were the first Europeans to permanently colonize what is now Quebec. (See French colonization of the Americas.) Their colonies of New France stretched across what today are the Maritime provinces, southern Quebec and Ontario, as well as the entire Mississippi River Valley. The first permanent European settlement in Canada was at Port Royal in 1605. The territories of New France were Canada, Acadia, and Louisiana. The inhabitants of Canada called themselves the Canadiens, the inhabitants of Acadia, the Acadiens, and the inhabitants of Louisiana, the Louisianais. Many French Canadians are the descendants of the King's Daughters of this era.

After the 1760 British conquest of New France in the French and Indian War, the French-Canadian population remained important in the life of the colonies.

The British, who had gained Acadia by the Treaty of Utrecht (1713), deported 75% of the Acadian population to other British colonies at the beginning of the French and Indian War. The French Canadians escaped this fate in part because of the capitulation act that made them British subjects. It took the 1774 Quebec Act for them to regain the French civil law system, and in 1791 French Canadians in Lower Canada were introduced to the British parliamentary system when an elected Legislative Assembly was created.

The Legislative Assembly having no real power, the political situation degenerated into the Lower Canada Rebellion of 1837–1838, after which Lower Canada and Upper Canada were unified. One of the motivations for the union was to limit French Canadian political power. After many decades of British immigration, the Canadiens became a minority in the Province of Canada in the 1850s.

French-Canadian contributions were essential in securing responsible government for The Canadas and in undertaking Canadian Confederation. However, over the course of the late 19th and 20th centuries, French Canadians' discontent grew with their place in Canada. (See Quebec, History of Canada and Politics of Canada.)

During the latter part of the 19th and early 20th centuries, approximately 1 million French Canadians emigrated from the province of Quebec to settle in New England. The reason for this exodus was mostly economic, though also political.

Since 1968, French has been one of Canada's two official languages. It is the sole official language of Quebec and one of the official languages of New Brunswick, the Northwest Territories, and Nunavut. The dialects of French spoken in Canada are quite distinct from those of France. See Canadian French.

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Modern usage

In English usage, the terms for provincial subgroups, if used at all, are usually defined solely by province of residence, with all of the terms being strictly interchangeable with French Canadian. Although this remains the more common usage in English, it is considered outdated to many Canadians of French descent, especially in Quebec.

Increasingly, provincial labels are used to stress the linguistic and cultural as opposed to ethnic and religious nature of French-speaking institutions and organizations. The term "French Canadian" is still used in historical and cultural contexts, or when it is necessary to refer to Canadians of French-Canadian collectively, such as in the name and mandate of a national organizations which serve minority francophone communities across Canada. Francophone Canadians of non-French-Canadian origin such as immigrants from francophone countries are not usually designed by the term "French Canadian"; the more general term "francophones" is used for French-speaking Canadians across all ethnic origins.

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