However, a 2008 Statistics Canada report suggests that those who go against the grain and start their new lives in smaller Canadian centres will likely experience an even more successful integration into Canadian society.

BY FANNIE OLIVIER, SCIENCES PO, SPECIAL TO THE MEDILL NEWS SERVICE

[A version of this story won second prize in the 2007 Daniel Pearl Award, a competition sponsored by The Wall Street Journal, in collaboration with the Ecole de Journalisme de Sciences Po in Paris, and was published in the Wall Street Journal Online]

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Virginie and Ronnie's apartment is perched at the top of a long and narrow spiral staircase. Located in a popular Paris neighborhood near the Gare du Nord train station, it is mansard-roofed and tiny. A painting is soiled and the walls are moldy. A visitor is struck by the three posters the tenants have pinned to the walls. Like a bowl of fresh air in this contained space, they depict the open space of Quebec. Written in French, a slogan in the center of the posters reads: "Make your life in Quebec." For the young French couple, it is their new mantra to escape the banality of their Parisian life.

Virginie is a 24-year-old business school graduate who could only find a job in Paris as a waitress. Ronnie has an undergraduate degree in English but dreams of becoming an illustrator. They want to abandon a country they think has no future. Or rather that has no future for them, professionally.

Next September, they will take off for Montreal, the economic capital of Quebec, to try their luck, as so many of their French compatriots did before them, in French-speaking America. Their ticket is one-way. They hope to resettle in the Canadian province of their dreams though neither has ever been to Quebec before.

Each year, 3000 to 4000 French decide to emigrate permanently to Quebec, according to the figures of the Quebec Immigration Ministry. Moreover, 7000 others arrive with temporary work visas, and 5000 more as exchange students. But the dream of Quebec sometimes turns into a nightmare since hundreds of them come back to France every year.