French

France

France was once among the greatest powers in the world, holding territory throughout the globe, and having arguably the greatest military on the European continent. Things began to derail for France in the middle of the 18th century, where they lost a global war to Great Britain, ceding the territory of Quebec.

Following that, when thirteen British colonies rebelled, France invested heavily in the rebellion to ensure the weakening of their British rivals. This led to financial destitution, and their own revolution. The French Revolution saw the rise of Napoleon, who reformed France into the French Empire with himself as emperor.

Through his conquests and wars, Napoleon spread the ideas of the French Revolution throughout Europe, including those in Italy where Napoleon had sympathies for a united Italian state. He placed many of his siblings on various thrones, including Joseph on the throne of Spain and Louis on the throne of Holland. The ramifications of this could be felt for generations. The Napoleonic Wars caused a sharp depletion in the French population, which had been the highest in Europe before the wars, with many losses in combat or seeking refuge abroad.

When Napoleon was defeated in 1815 and the Bourbon monarchy was restored, many of the territories that were under French control were carved up by various powers. Haiti, which had been the Caribbean jewel of the French Empire, was declared an independent kingdom, while the Louisiana Territory fell to America during the Franco-American Wars. However, much like Quebec, these areas held considerable French populations and cultural identity.

France was faced with yet another revolution in the Springtime of Nations in 1848, where the Orleanist monarchy was overthrown in favor of a republic. The Second French Republic elected Louis-Eugene Cavaignac as president. However, he failed to adequately deal with the tensions from the 1848 Revolution, and thus sparked the French Civil War in 1850.

The regions of Algeria, Brittany, Corsica, and Occitania gained independence, either becoming their own separate kingdoms or, in Corsica's case, joining the growing movement for Italian unification. France then became an isolated socialist state under Louis Blanc. Many of the French population fled to other nations in Europe, or to the French diasporas in Quebec and Louisiana.

During the Great War, France was officially neutral, the French people nonetheless significantly felt the effects of war as the nation was a battleground between the combatants. In order to decrease the fighting, Vladimir Lenin was rescued from Switzerland and invited to Paris, where he used the socialist roots of the French society to galvanize the population. These ideas spread amongst the Dutch and Occitan armies, who were the primary combatants during the conflict in France, and thus Holland and Occitania faced communist uprisings and mutinies. The respective monarchies were overthrown, and in their place the provisional governments united to form the Comintern Republic. Those fleeing the war and the communist uprisings once again left for areas abroad, with Louisiana and Quebec facing the lion's share.

Quebec

Following the Seven Years War, Quebec was ceded to Great Britain. Since the region was predominantly French and Catholic, the Quebecois elected to not join the American War for Independence, and instead remained under British rule. This remained until the formation of the Kingdom of Canada, where Quebec joined the kingdom as a province in exchange for guaranteed protections of their French identity. This was granted in the Canadian constitution signed by King Alfred I in 1870. These rights were not challenged until the violent rise of the Comintern Republic, and the fear of the French identity being linked to violence and rebellion.

The Canadian government under Queen Victoria began to rescind these protections, seeking to create a unified Canadian identity under Anlgo-Protestant ideologies. The stripping of these protections led to the Montreal Riots, a failed uprising that saw the increased oppression of the French culture in Canada and validated the fears in the eyes of Canadian conservatives. Many of the French in Quebec sought further refuge in America and the Republic of Oregon.

Louisiana

During the Second Franco-American War, the Louisiana Conquest saw a considerable increase in the territorial control of the Kingdom of America. The port of New Orleans, renamed to Ferdinand in honor of the slain Crown Prince Louis Ferdinand, retained a significant French cultural identity. This persists into the 20th century, even during the Great War and the rise of the Comintern Republic. This was because America had signed a declaration of neutrality during the Congress of Columbia.

Nevertheless, the French identity increased with refugees from Europe. Under Chancellor James M. Cox, however, America joined in the rising fear of French identity, enacting legislation that was aimed in limiting the teaching of languages outside of English throughout American public schools. Though this was challenged in the courts, the sentiment remained, and the French culture was oppressed, being mostly contained within the city.

Haiti

During the Franco-American Wars and the Napoleonic Wars, Haiti began to fight for their independence from France. This led to the most successful slave revolt in human history, with the Haitian government and elite being made up of a large number of former slaves. Under General Toussaint Louverture, as well as American and British support, Haiti won its independence. The War of the Grasses in 1805 saw Louverture defeat his friend turned rival, Jean-Jacques Dessalines, over the question of what to do with the white French minority.

With Louverture's victory, the white minority was protected. These protections were codified with the constitution and declaration of the kingdom by Jean-Pierre Boyer. The protections of the French culture remained until he middle of the 20th century, where the growing anti-French sentiment saw Haiti receive political isolation with their refusal to abandon any French identity.