The book contains papers presented at an international colloquium which has taken place at regular intervals (since 1985) and which is devoted to the contrasting study of the French language in Europe and Canada. In 2007 the focus was on the different varieties of French that can be observed in France and in Canada. Here specialists from Canada, France and Germany present their research results in the fields of phonetics and phonology, vocabulary and lexicography, word formation, history of the French language and the history of (French) place names in present-day Canada.