Franco-Manitoban

Franco-Manitobans (French: Franco-Manitobains) are French Canadians or Canadian francophones living in the province of Manitoba. According to the 2016 Canadian Census, 40,975 residents of the province stated that French was their mother tongue. In the same census, 148,810 Manitobans claimed to have either full or partial French ancestry. There are several Franco-Manitoban communities throughout Manitoba, although the majority are based in either the Winnipeg Capital Region or the Eastman Region. The first francophones to enter the region were fur traders during the late 17th century, with the first French settlers arriving in the subsequent century. Francophones constituted the majority of the region's non-First Nations population until the mid 19th century, when anglophones became the linguistic majority. In 1869, the Red River Rebellion was sparked by a group of Métis francophones, eventually resulting in the admittance of the Red River Colony as a bilingual province of Canada. However, the provincial government moved to revoke the linguistic rights accorded to francophones late 19th and early 20th centuries. Restoration of these linguistic rights did not begin until 1970, when French was made an official language of its public education system. The linguistic rights of Franco-Manitobans was also furthered as a result of several decisions made by the Supreme Court of Canada during the 1970s to 1990s.