In the wake of the French Revolution, the hyper-centralist French state, with an Enlightenment-era dislike of diversity and a fondness for "standardization", deliberately eradicated lots of cultural diversity within France -- the Breton and Occitan languages were nearly driven extinct, and Basque's survival is much less assured than on the Spanish side of the border. Were Canada still a French possession, that Parisian chauvinism may well have impacted Canada all the same.