French Canadians, referred to as Canadiens mainly before the nineteenth century, are an ethnic group descended from French colonists first arriving in France's colony of Canada in 1608. The vast majority of French Canadians live in the province of Quebec.
During the 17th century, French settlers originating mainly from the west and north of France settled Canada.G. E. Marquis and Louis Allen, "The French Canadians in the Province of Quebec" . The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Vol. 107, Social and Economic Conditions in The Dominion of Canada (May, 1923), pp. 7–12. It is from them that the French Canadian ethnicity was born. During the 17th to 18th centuries, French Canadians expanded across North America and colonized various regions, cities, and towns. As a result, people of French Canadian descent can be found across North America. Between 1840 and 1930, many French Canadians emigrated to New England, an event known as the Grande Hémorragie.
Etymology French Canadians get their name from the French colony of Canada, the most developed and densely populated region of New France during the period of French colonization in the 17th and 18th centuries. The original use of the term Canada referred to the area of present-day Quebec along the St. Lawrence River, divided in three districts (Québec, Trois-Rivières, and Montréal), as well as to the Pays d'en Haut (Upper Countries), a vast and thinly settled territorial dependence north and west of Montreal which covered the whole of the Great Lakes area.
From 1535 to the 1690s, Canadien was a word used by the French to refer to the First Nations they had encountered in the St. Lawrence River valley at Stadacona and Hochelaga; however, First Nations groups did not refer to themselves as Canadien. At the end of the 17th century, Canadien became an ethnonym distinguishing the French inhabitants of Canada from those of France. At the end of the 18th century, to distinguish between the English-speaking population and the French-speaking population, the terms English Canadian and French Canadian emerged. During the Quiet Revolution of the 1960s to 1980s, inhabitants of Quebec began to identify as Québécois instead of simply French Canadian.
History
French settlers from Normandy, Perche, Beauce, Brittany, Maine, Anjou, Touraine, Poitou, Aunis, Angoumois, Saintonge, and Gascony were the first Europeans to permanently colonize what is now Quebec, parts of Ontario, Acadia, and select areas of Western Canada. 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.
In 1603, Samuel de Champlain began exploring the area of modern-day Quebec. The first permanent European settlements in Canada were established at Port Royal in 1605 and Quebec City in 1608 as fur trading posts. The territories of New France were Canada, Acadia, and Louisiana; the mid-continent Illinois Country was at first governed from Canada and then attached to Louisiana. The inhabitants of the New French colony of Canada called themselves and came mostly from northwestern France. The early Acadians came mostly but not exclusively from Aquitaine.
explorers and fur traders would come to be known as and , while those who settled on farms would come to be known as . Many French Canadians are the descendants of the King's Daughters. A few also are the descendants of mixed French and Algonquian marriages (see also Metis people). During the mid-18th century, French explorers and Canadiens born in French Canada colonized other parts of North America in modern-day Louisiana; Mississippi; Missouri; Illinois; Vincennes, Indiana; Louisville, Kentucky; the Windsor-Detroit region; and the Canadian prairies (primarily southern Manitoba).
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 gained Acadia by the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713. It took the 1774 Quebec Act for French Canadians to regain the French civil law system, and in 1791 French Canadians in Lower Canada were introduced to the parliamentary system when an elected Legislative Assembly was created. The Legislative Assembly having no real power, the political situation degenerated into the Lower Canada Rebellions of 1837–1838, after which Lower Canada and Upper Canada were unified. Some of the motivations for the union was to limit French-Canadian political power and at the same time transferring a large part of the Upper Canadian debt to the debt-free Lower Canada. 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. In the late 19th and 20th centuries, French Canadians' discontent grew with their place in Canada because of a series of events, including the execution of Louis Riel; the elimination of official bilingualism in Manitoba; Canada's participation in the Second Boer War; Regulation 17, which banned French language schools in Ontario; the Conscription Crisis of 1917; and the Conscription Crisis of 1944.Paul-André Linteau, René Durocher, and Jean-Claude Robert, Quebec: a history 1867–1929 (1983) p. 261–272.P.B. Waite, Canada 1874–1896 (1996), pp 165–174.
Between the 1840s and the 1930s, some 900,000 French Canadians immigrated to New England. About half of them returned home. The generations born in the United States would eventually come to see themselves as Franco-Americans. During the same period of time, numerous French Canadians also migrated to eastern and northern Ontario. The descendants of those Quebec inter-provincial migrants constitute the bulk of today's Franco-Ontarian community.
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, Yukon, the Northwest Territories, and Nunavut. Ontario has no official languages defined in law, although the provincial government provides French language services in many parts of the province under the French Language Services Act.
Demography Genetics French Canadians of Quebec are a classic example of founder population. Over 150 years of French colonization, between 1608 and 1760, an estimated 8,500 pioneers married and left at least one descendant on the territory. Following the takeover of the colony by the British crown in 1760, immigration from France effectively stopped, but descendants of French settlers continued to grow in number due to their high fertility rate. Intermarriage occurred mostly with the deported Acadians and migrants coming from the British Isles. Since the 20th century, the French-Canadian population has experienced significantly more intermixing with other ethnic groups, from many different origins. Nevertheless, while the French Canadians of Quebec today may be partly of other ancestries, the genetic contribution of the original French founders remains predominant, explaining about 90% of regional gene pools, while Acadians (descended from other French settlers in eastern Canada) account for 4% and British 2%, with Native American and other groups contributing less.
Language
There are many varieties of French spoken by francophone Canadians, for example Quebec French, Acadian French, Métis French, and Newfoundland French. The French spoken in Ontario, the Canadian West, and New England can trace their roots back to Quebec French because of Quebec's diaspora. Over time, many regional accents have emerged. Canada is estimated to be home to between 32 and 36 regional French accents, 17 of which can be found in Quebec, and seven of which are found in New Brunswick. There are also people who will naturally speak using Québécois Standard or Joual which are considered sociolects.
There are about seven million French Canadians and native French speakers in Quebec. Another one million French-speaking French Canadians are distributed throughout the rest of Canada. French Canadians may also speak Canadian English, especially if they live in overwhelmingly English-speaking environments. In Canada, not all those of French Canadian ancestry speak French, but the vast majority do.
Francophones living in Canadian provinces other than Quebec have enjoyed minority language rights under Canadian law since the Official Languages Act of 1969, and under the Canadian Constitution since 1982, protecting them from provincial governments that have historically been indifferent towards their presence. At the provincial level, New Brunswick formally designates French as a full official language, while other provinces vary in the level of French language services they offer. All three of Canada's territories include French as an official language of the territory alongside English and local indigenous languages; however, in practice, French-language services are normally available only in the capital cities and not across the entire territory.
Religion Catholicism is the chief denomination amongst French Canadians. The kingdom of France forbade non-Catholic settlement in New France from 1629 onward; thus, almost all French settlers of Canada were Catholic. In the United States, some families of French-Canadian origin have converted to Protestantism. Until the 1960s, religion was a central component of French-Canadian national identity. The Church parish was the focal point of civic life in French-Canadian society, and religious orders ran French-Canadian schools, hospitals and orphanages and were very influential in everyday life in general. During the Quiet Revolution of the 1960s, however, the practice of Catholicism dropped drastically. In 2025 however, there was a reported rise in adult baptisms and an increased number of baptisms of people over the age of 7. The Catholic Church of Quebec described the recent increase in baptisms among adults and adolescents as a "surprising phenomenon … gaining momentum" and that interest in Catholic baptism is "especially present" in young people and in adults from immigrant backgrounds. Later on Holy Saturday in 2026, it was reported that young people were joining the Catholic Church due to the presence of priests and young influencers on social media platforms such as TikTok and Instagram. Other reasons for young people joining the Catholic Church was reported to be due to taking an interest in Quebec's religious heritage so that they could "understand their identity."
+ French Canadian demography by religionReligious group20212001 Christianity 5,557,055 4,086,585 Islam 16,970 5,325 Irreligion 3,194,135 551,100 Judaism 19,860 8,575 Buddhism 7,570 4,995 Hinduism 1,825 665 Indigenous spirituality 7,175 3,105 Sikhism 505 345 Other 55,080 7,700 Total French Canadian population 8,906,985 4,668,410
+ French Canadian demography by Christian sectsReligious group20212001 Catholic 4,431,330 3,373,730 Orthodox 16,100 7,110 Protestant 963,255 628,275 Other Christian 496,730 77,470 Total French canadian christian population 5,557,055 4,086,585
Geographical distribution
People who claim some French-Canadian ancestry or heritage number some 7 million in Canada. In the United States, 2.4 million people report French-Canadian ancestry or heritage, while an additional 8.4 million claim French ancestry; they are treated as a separate ethnic group by the U.S. Census Bureau.
Canada
In Canada, 85% of French Canadians reside in Quebec where they constitute the majority of the population in all regions except the far north (Nord-du-Québec). Most cities and villages in this province were built and settled by the French or French Canadians during the French colonial rule.