French diaspora

The French diaspora (French: Diaspora française) consists of French people and their descendants living outside France. Countries with significant numbers of people with French ancestry include Canada and the United States, whose territories were partly colonized by France between the 16th and 19th centuries, as well as Argentina. Although less important than in other European countries, immigration from France to the New World was numerous from the start of the 19th century to the middle of the 20th century. As of 2013, French authorities estimate that between 2 and 3.5 million French nationals are living abroad but the diaspora includes over 30 million people.

Several events have led to emigration from France. The Huguenots started leaving in the 16th century, a trend that dramatically increased following the 1685 revocation of the Edict of Nantes. French colonization, especially in the Americas, was prominent in the late 17th and 18th centuries. At the end of the 18th century, French emigration (1789–1815) was a massive movement of émigrés mostly to neighboring European countries, as a result of the violence caused by the French Revolution. Later emigration was often associated with economic conditions. From 1847 to 1857, almost 200,000 French people emigrated abroad. From 1821 to 1920, around 121,000 Basques and Bearnese people from Basses-Pyrénées emigrated to America—more than 108,000 from 1835 to 1901.

As of 2016, the exact number of people who fled from France during the Revolutionary-era is not known. Between 1848 and 1939, 1 million people with French passports emigrated to other countries. In the Western Hemisphere, the main communities of French ancestry are found in the United States, Canada and Argentina. Sizeable groups are also found in Brazil, Chile, Mexico, Uruguay, South Africa, Germany, the United Kingdom and Australia.

In the Western Hemisphere, the main communities of French ancestry are found in Canada, the United States and Argentina. Sizeable groups are also found in Australia, Brazil, Chile, Mexico, South Africa and Uruguay.

During the period of French rule, there were almost no official controls on settlement by French nationals into the colonies. The European community of Dakar was ruled by the French, but also including Whites from outside France. French men in the colonial administration looked down on the rest of the European population. Aside from the administrators, the French population in Senegal during the period between the world wars contained rich merchant families from Bordeaux as well as smaller traders and their employees, as well as a large transient population of missionaries and travellers. The French required no identity cards or passports to travel in Senegal, making it easy to assume false identities and creating significant difficulties in policing them. Administrators expressed frustration with the influx of criminals and other "undesirables" from metropolitan France, which ran counter to what they saw as the French "civilising mission" to present "morally upright" role models for Africans to emulate. During the Independence of Senegal, there were estimated to be 40,000 French people in the country, three-quarters in Dakar alone in 1960. Though Dakar in particular featured a far higher proportion of non-indigenous population than many surrounding African countries in which racial conflict had become apparent, inter-ethnic relations there were characterised by an "apparent absence of any colour problem". It had been expected that most French citizens would soon return to France after independence, but a decade later, there were still 29,000 living in the country, involved with French aid and capital investment; their presence reflected the continued dependence of France's African colonies on the métropole. Some Senegalese people of French descent had illnesses of meningoencephalitis, staphylococcal infection of the skin, and the like, worsened by their failure or inability to seek medical attention. There are still some of the French who remained in Senegal.

The first French settlers arrived in Mauritius (then Isle de France) in 1722, after the previous attempts of settlement by the Dutch had failed, and the island had once again become abandoned. They lived and prospered on the island, ruling it until the British invasion of 1810. The French by now strongly identified with the island, and the terms of capitulation allowed the settlers to live on as a distinct francophone ethnic group for the next 158 years under British rule before Mauritius attained independence.

Not all Franco-Mauritians have pure French lineage, many also have British or other European ancestors that came to Mauritius and were absorbed in the Franco-Mauritian community or the gens de couleur (Coloureds). There are an estimated 15,000–20,000 Franco-Mauritians; French lineage is also found within the gens de couleur community with many having predominantly French ancestors—a further 30,000 people with considerable French bloodline. Within the Afro-Creole community, a large number of people have some French ancestors from slavery.

According to estimates, there are more than 8 million people with French ancestry living in Latin America, three-quarters of them in Argentina. Following the independence of Latin American countries in the first decades of the 19th century, a great wave of French immigration towards the region appeared, mainly directed to the River Plate basin. It lasted until the 1960s, when the economic situation in Latin America deteriorated and military dictatorships came into power. During this period of time, Argentina and Uruguay received more than 300,000 French immigrants, appearing as the second destination for French immigration worldwide after the United States.