Hopeful immigrants to Canada are learning French after other paths to permanent residency prove difficult

Johann Loewenstein spent three months this spring in Grenoble, France, learning the country’s native language in a Hail Mary attempt to become a permanent resident of Canada.Mr. Loewenstein, 21, then a first-year student at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ont., had moved to Canada from Colombia in 2019, later completing an aerospace engineering program at Centennial College in Toronto and working for one year as a mechanical technician, all with the hopes of settling here.