[5][6] However, cultural programs in recent years have led to renewed interest between older generations speaking the dialect, and the language has also been bolstered by newly arrived refugee populations from Francophone Africa in cities such as Lewiston.

[7][8] Dating back to the earliest colonial period, a French presence remained in New England with its proximity to Quebec, even after many Acadians were exiled in Le Grand Dérangement and later settled in Spanish Louisiana.

[15] Prior to the Great Migration of the Québécois during the Second Industrial Revolution, one of the earliest examples of New England French arose from the Papineau Rebellion in Lower Canada.

Following the rebellion, Ludger Duvernay, one of the 26 patriot leaders arrested by Canadian authorities for printing articles critical of the British colonial government, went into exile in the States.

Formerly publishing La Minerve in Montreal, he issued a prospectus for a French-language paper in 1838, hoping Americans would support a journal that promoted civil rights and independence in Lower Canada.

This statement would serve as a flashpoint of controversy for decades, but others in the Yankee political class would welcome the newcomers, with Senator Henry Cabot Lodge remarking in a 1908 immigration speech to the Boston City Club that they "represent one of the oldest settlements on this continent.

"[21][22][23] Industrial cities as large as Fall River, Massachusetts, and as small as Somersworth, New Hampshire, would often have bilingual signs, and American customs such as baseball gradually adopted by younger generations had their own francized jargon, with it being as common for a muff[b] to be met with an outcry of "sacré nom" by spectators.

In one 1936 editorial in the Woonsocket L'Union, the editorship described an apathy that had set in with the French community in response to an increase in advertising for financial support-[31][d] "Our press is barely able to maintain itself ... One of our weeklies has just expired; others live almost exclusively on ads; many get only blame and denigration in return for the free publicity they give to Franco-American works ...

[31] One exception to this was Lewiston's Le Messager, whose publisher-owner, Jean-Baptiste Couture, founded central Maine's first, and New England's only radio station owned by a Franco-American weekly, WCOU, in 1938.

This included Le Travailleur, a Worcester French-language weekly that folded in 1978 which, in its final years, could hardly be described as in the tradition of its predecessors, as it was mainly syndicated news from France.

[35][36]: 100  The only New England French news outlet to endure into the emergence of the internet was Le Journal de Lowell; founded in 1975, the monthly paper would continue to produce French-language content, including the translation of English ads, until December 1995, when it abruptly ceased publication.

"[20][e] While a sense of civic solidarity with Americans was expressed by Laurier and other French-American and Canadian leaders, economic discrimination also disfavored New England French speakers.

Most notably, children were often asked to refrain from speaking anything but English when state officials were present, leading to "silent playgrounds" during days schools were being inspected.

[39] In turn, as the economy of Canada improved, a number of those whose families had moved to the United States would return to Quebec, Ontario, and New Brunswick, as well, into the latter half of the 20th century.

[42] To some degree a Comité de la Survivance française en Amérique would remain active into the 1950s,[43] while meetings of the Société Historique Franco-Américaine would continue in cooperation with other French-speaking communities through the 1980s.

[8][48] Although not taught strictly in the New England dialect, in recent years new efforts have arisen to preserve the language, with a Maine chapter of the Alliance Française established in Portland in August 2019, adding to others in Hartford, Providence, Greater Burlington, the Centre Franco-Americain in Manchester, and the French Cultural Center in Boston.

Many of these words are used as terms of endearment between grandparents referring to their grandchildren, or by their parents, and often picked up by the children themselves, in households of Franco-American families whose youngest generations primarily speak English.

In other mediums the language is rarely found, with the exception of Canadian French AM repeaters of Radio-Canada from Quebec, and an online forum maintained by the Organisation internationale de la Francophonie, "Bienvenue à Boston".