French colonization of the Americas From 1851 to 1951 it was the site of a notorious penal colony, Devil's Island ("Île du Diable"). Since 1946, French Guiana has been an overseas department of France. French colonization of the Americas The French colonization of the Americas began in the 16th century, and continued on into the following centuries as France established a colonial empire in the Western Hemisphere. France founded colonies in much of eastern North America, on a number of Caribbean islands, and in South America. Most colonies were developed to export products such as fish, rice sugar, and furs. As they colonized the New
French migration to the United Kingdom Huguenots, French Protestants who in the 16th and 17th centuries fled religious persecution in France. Although a substantial French Protestant community existed in London from the sixteenth century, the suppression of Protestantism in France in the 1680s led to a mass migration of predominantly Calvinist refugees, most of whom settled in London, partly in Spitalfields in the east and Soho in the west. The French protestant community was one of the largest and most distinctive communities in the capital in the 18th-century. Later, during and after the French Revolution, there was also an influx of French Catholics. The 2011 UK