From: The Encyclopedia of Canada's Peoples/French/Richard Jones
For immigrants from France, relations with the host society have been conditioned by residence within or outside Quebec. Outside Quebec, most immigrants tended to cluster in small colonies which, more or less rapidly, became demographically mixed. French colonists were soon brought into forced contact with other ethnic groups. For those interested in the maintenance of the French language, cooperation with French Canadians who also settled on the prairies was essential. Henri d’Hellencourt, a French military officer who emigrated to western Canada, published L’Écho du Manitoba (Winnipeg, 1898–1905). French immigrants also worked to set up French-language radio stations in Saint-Boniface and Saskatoon. But there was also friction between the two groups: one French immigrant, Georges Forestier, who returned to France after seven years in Manitoba, complained of the constant antagonism between French and French Canadians, and also of the climate, the mosquitoes, and the usurers, who were more wolfish than the wolves.
In Quebec, in spite of the common language, relations between French immigrants and Francophone Quebeckers have been more complex than might be expected. For Quebeckers, France was perhaps a distant mother country, but it had also abandoned its former colony. Closer relations were established in the mid-nineteenth century, after the celebrated voyage of the French schooner La Capricieuse and the opening of French consulates in Quebec City and then in Montreal. But the Quebec press often bitterly criticized France for its anticlericalism and Quebec elites had little love for the Third Republic.
On a more personal level, stereotypes have abounded. Journalist Naïm Kattan, who was born in Iraq but who emigrated to France and then to Canada, reflected upon his experience in a study he did for the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism. For Kattan, the difficulties, economic and other, faced by some French immigrants, and the ensuing feeling of inferiority, made it tempting for them to compensate by affirming what they believed to be their cultural, educational, and linguistic superiority. Many Francophone Quebeckers reciprocated by showing particular disdain toward French immigrants. In a study submitted to the Quebec Royal Commission on Constitutional Problems, the Chambre de Commerce du District de Montréal noted: “Not only are the French difficult to assimilate, but in practice the population of Quebec, for various reasons, is not sympathetic to the arrival of immigrants in our province, even and perhaps especially if they are of French origin and language.”Georges-Émile Lapalme, leader of the Quebec Liberal Party in the 1950s, wrote in 1959: “French Canadians come close to detesting foreigners and, it has to be said, the French from France.” In turn, many French immigrants complained of the welcome they received. As one wrote in 1955: “In Quebec it suffices to be French to see all doors and all hearts closed.”
And yet, by the early 1950s, some Quebeckers worried that French Canada’s lack of interest in immigration and indifference if not hostility to immigrants were dangerous for that society’s future. In 1950 journalist Jean-Marc Léger and others, most of whom had been students in France, established the Accueil Franco-canadien in Montreal. Patterned on the model of an existing association in France, the Accueil had social and cultural objectives which it hoped to accomplish by bringing French Canadians and French immigrants into closer contact with each other. But the immediate needs of French immigrants proved to be economic: by early 1952, between twenty and thirty French immigrants were coming to the tiny organization’s modest office each day, many totally destitute, in search of a suitable job and a decent salary, and the Accueil was begging the provincial and federal governments for modest grants to continue its work. By 1955, the Association France-Canada had taken over much of the work of the Accueil. Cultural activities were also promoted by the Union Nationale Française, and substantial numbers of French Canadians attended the balls it gave.
Other associations were designed to help solve problems faced by all immigrants including the French. The Société d’Assistance aux Immigrants, established in October 1950 by the diocese of Montreal, sought with its modest means to combat prejudice against immigrants of all origins and to assist in their integration. The Aide aux Voyageurs, a Catholic undertaking but open to all groups, was established to welcome new arrivals at railroad stations and at the airport. In 1954 René Gauthier, of the Montreal Catholic School Commission’s Service des Néo-Canadiens, helped found the Amitiés Franco-néo-canadiennes, an association whose objective was to bring French Canadians into contact with immigrants of many nationalities. Other groups organized dances, excursions, sports, and various other activities, again to favour contact with new immigrants.
The considerable change in attitudes of Quebeckers, born in part of the Quiet Revolution, with the new confidence and broadening horizons that stemmed from it, had a healthy effect on relations with immigrants in general and with French immigrants in particular. The absence of a French immigrant quarter in Montreal has signified constant links with the host population. Mass tourism and increased cultural ties have also facilitated closer relationships between French and French Canadians in general. In addition, the relatively small number of French immigrants in recent years has made integration much easier than in the past. Instead, the spotlight has focused on immigration from Asian, African, and Latin American nations.
