French Canadians

French Canadians (also referred to as Franco-Canadians or Canadiens; French: Canadien(ne)s français(es)) are an ethnic group who trace their ancestry to French colonists who settle in Canada from the seventeenth century onward.

Today, French Canadians constitute the main French-speaking population in Canada, accounting for about 22% of the total population.

During the mid-eighteenth century, Canadian colonists born in French Canada expand across North America and colonize various regions, cities, and towns; the French Canadian settlers originate primarily from districts in the northwest of France, such as Normandy, Perche, Beauce, Maine, Anjou, Touraine, Poitou, Aunis, Angoumois, Saintonge and Gascony.

Today, French Canadians live across North America.

Most French Canadians reside in Quebec, and are more commonly referred to as Quebecers or Québécois, although smaller communities exist throughout Canada and in the United States.

Between 1840 and 1930, roughly  nine hundred thousand French Canadians emigrate to the United States, mostly to the New England region.

Acadians (Acadiens), who reside in the Maritimes, may be included among the French Canadian group in linguistic contexts, but are considered a separate group from the French Canadians in a cultural sense due to their distinct history, much of which predates the admission of the Maritime Provinces to Canadian Confederation in 1867.

French Canadians (including those who are no longer French-speaking) constitute the second largest ethnic group in Canada, behind the English Canadians, and ahead of Scottish Canadians and Irish Canadians, although there is a divide between those identifying as French Canadians and those simply identifying as French.

In total, those who identify as French Canadian, French, Québécois and Acadian number up to eleven million, nine hundred thousand million people or comprising 33.78% of the Canadian population.

Not all francophone Canadians are of French Canadian descent or heritage, as the body of French language speakers in Canada also includes significant immigrant communities from other francophone countries such as Haiti, Cameroon, Algeria, Tunisia or Vietnam—and not all French Canadians are francophone, as a significant number of people of French Canadian ethnicity are native English speakers.

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