France in canon doesn't strike me as a doting parent type, because he's kind of irresponsible and more concerned with sleeping around and everything. England, as a "big brother" seems much more emotionally involved with America than "big brother" France is with, let's say, Italy.
For the history, there's the fact that the French didn't care as much about developping their North-American colonies in the 17th-18th century as the British did for various reasons, and mainly used New France as a place to harvest furs and the likes. They used their vast territory often as a bargaining chips in peace treaties in the 18th century (War of Spanish Succession, War of the Augsburg League, War of Austrian Succession...). When the Seven Years War came around, France put most of its efforts into the fighting that was taking place in Europe and didn't send a whole lot of help to its North American colonies. The idea of giving up New-France after their defeat in Europe was to keep the colonies it had in Central America. (French Philosopher Voltaire said about it that it was better to harvest the sweet sugar of the southern islands than to fight for a few acres of snow, which sort of reflects how the French aristocracy viewed the American colonies.) England won over New-France, renamed it Province of Quebec, and while the British imposed their rule by force and did a lot of bad things, especially to the natives that were allies of the French, they were forced to let the French keep their religion and language by various circumstances, most notably the American Revolution, because they didn't want the French colons to revolt with the patriots. The British also played a major role in developping the territories that would later become modern-day Canada, through the large influx first of Royalists after the Revolutionary War, British immigration and British capital during the 19th century.
So yeah, that's just how I see it when I have to write it, France being more of "that guy who took care of me kinda badly when I was young" and England really being Canada's father, in a way. But hey, you give me a good FACE family story and I'm all about cute fatherly interaction between Canada and France ;).
Re: ITT: Family Headcanon
For the history, there's the fact that the French didn't care as much about developping their North-American colonies in the 17th-18th century as the British did for various reasons, and mainly used New France as a place to harvest furs and the likes. They used their vast territory often as a bargaining chips in peace treaties in the 18th century (War of Spanish Succession, War of the Augsburg League, War of Austrian Succession...). When the Seven Years War came around, France put most of its efforts into the fighting that was taking place in Europe and didn't send a whole lot of help to its North American colonies. The idea of giving up New-France after their defeat in Europe was to keep the colonies it had in Central America. (French Philosopher Voltaire said about it that it was better to harvest the sweet sugar of the southern islands than to fight for a few acres of snow, which sort of reflects how the French aristocracy viewed the American colonies.) England won over New-France, renamed it Province of Quebec, and while the British imposed their rule by force and did a lot of bad things, especially to the natives that were allies of the French, they were forced to let the French keep their religion and language by various circumstances, most notably the American Revolution, because they didn't want the French colons to revolt with the patriots. The British also played a major role in developping the territories that would later become modern-day Canada, through the large influx first of Royalists after the Revolutionary War, British immigration and British capital during the 19th century.
So yeah, that's just how I see it when I have to write it, France being more of "that guy who took care of me kinda badly when I was young" and England really being Canada's father, in a way. But hey, you give me a good FACE family story and I'm all about cute fatherly interaction between Canada and France ;).