How did French relations with the Indians compare with those of Spain?

Another important aspect of relations between these two
empires and the Native Americans of the New World had to do with religion.  Both France
and Spain were Catholic countries, and both were concerned with converting the natives
to their religion and saving their souls, but they went about it in much different
ways.

France's presence in the colonies was both more
recent and on a smaller scale than Spain.  The Spanish had conquered all of Latin
America and had adopted strict conversion requirements on all natives, wth the goal of
not only saving souls, but reducing the native populations.  Those that did not convert
were denied everything from access to food to their very lives, the result being that
Latin America today is overwhelmingly Spanish-speaking and Roman
Catholic. 

France at its height had about 70,000 total
settlers in the New World, scattered across colonies from Haiti to Quebec to present-day
Montana.  In these inferior numbers, they had to apply a softer touch than the
Conquistadors, and learned the language and customs of the Natives in a more passive
attempt at conversion.   Their long range cultural impact, then, has been much less than
Spain's.