Talk:French people/Archive 5

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"The French are a Romance ethnic group" first sentence in lede

I find it odd that this is the first sentence in the lede. French identity today is mostly based on Renan's ideas of the shared social contract-- not tribal ethnicities and certainly not the "Romance" one. I could maybe understand placing this in the lede of the Romanians article, because the idea of "brotherhood" with other "Latin" peoples is important there--or to a lesser extent maybe Italians-- but this seems to be pushing a POV for the French that actually contradicts what is said further down on the page. The page doesn't discuss any feelings of brotherhood or anything with Aromanians or Sicilians on the basis of languages both coming from Latin, and to be honest I've never heard of such a thing in regards to France (Italy--yes). Instead it gives a view of French identity that is based on citizenship rather than "racial history". Roman history is already discussed (I have added to this) and aspects of folk culture coming from a Roman background can of course (and should if they have RS) be discussed in the main part of the article -- but not in the first sentence of the lede like this, I think. I will be removing it momentarily. --Calthinus (talk) 15:16, 27 July 2018 (UTC)

I agree. Not only French people don't refer to themselves as an ethnic group, but they've actually never done so. That's the reason why the article fails short to define a French "ethnicity" beyond the unsupported statement in the first sentence. The French people emerged from a large variety of separate ethnic groups speaking different Romance, Celtic, Germanic, or even Vasconic languages. I'm sure Scottish people and even English people wouldn't agree if Wikipedia would enforce defining British people as an "ethnic" group, considering that the notion of French people is as much inclusive, it's natural French people feel precisely the same.

Just like for the articles about British people, Americans or Australians, the article should strictly relate to French people as what they identify themselves too, which means according to their citizenship (what the article actually does beyond the introduction), and the infobox demographics should be adjusted accordingly. A mention can still be added at the end of the introduction to specify there are people with French ancestry accross the world, but in no way those could be considered "French people", unless of course if we consider Americans to be "English people" as well. I would favor translating the whole introduction of the French version of the article, which is pretty well-written, as probably French people themselves know the best who they are. Metropolitan (talk) 10:23, 16 August 2018 (UTC)

No, I absolutely disagree. French people don't refer to themselves as an "ethnic group", because no "ethnic group" does so anyway. They usually refer to themselves as a people. Berrichons or Gascons never (or rarely) refer to themselves as an "ethnic group" neither and generally consider themselves to belong to the French people (my ancestors are from Gascony and I know this region well). The terms "ethnic group" or "ethnicity" are recent and more scholarly than popular, but we know that the phenomenon which those terms describe is very old. Furthermore, there is a real taboo about ethnicity in France where the term is often thought to describe a racial, biologically or culturally pure group (we know that such a group does not exist), and few French people really know what an "ethnic group" mean anyway (whatever their ancestry or ethnic identity are). A lot of ethnologists or sociologists (like Anthony D. Smith or David Levinson for example to cite a few) have written about the French people and acknowledge that there is such a thing as a "French ethnic group". French ethnic identity has evolved over time to include more and more people (by assimilation). Yes, we can ask ourselves if some regions, like Corsica or Alsace, are their own ethnic group (I think it's obvious for Corsica, and Alsace has a unique and very distinct identity too) or if they are, in addition, ethnically French too (or not, it's up to them to define their identity and who they think their ancestors were). You can't compare French people with Americans or Australians, because those countries are modern and have been founded by immigrants, which is not the case of France. Yes, French identity is primarily based on citizenship, but every nation has a civic and ethnic component, and the French one is not an exception. Furthermore, the vast majority of regions in metropolitan France originally spoke a romance language and every citizen nowadays speak French, which is a romance language too. Germanic, Celtic and Basque languages are originally spoken on a little part of this territory, and France as a whole is a latin country and its culture a latin one too. France as a whole has little to do with Germany, Scandinavia or Ireland for example.

An ethnic group is defined as a social entity whose members consider they have a common ancestry, history... they focus on some cultural elements which they consider to be symbolic and which define their identity. If people identify themselves as French and say their ancestry is "French", then yes, there is a French ethnic group. Ethnic identity is believed to be universal, and French people have one too (we all have one or more ethnic identities), but that does not mean that those French people whose ancestry is not French are less French than other, because French people are first defined in term of citizenship (and the descendants of immigrants have an ethnic identity too, ethnic identity doesn't suddenly disappear at the borders of France). But neither does it mean that French people are not an ethnic group also. As is said in the article, the connection with France can be "ethnic, legal, historical or cultural". And French people as an ethnic group are latin, which they are in term of citizenship also. And besides, the concept of the civic nation was for the first time theorised by the Greeks and the Romans.Peculiar1943 (talk) 14:57, 17 August 2018 (UTC)

French people never defined their "Frenchness" according to their ancestry. That's just not the way French national identity has been built in the first place. France is the mixture of multiple Celtic, Italic and Germanic peoples (among others) which happened to be randomly conqueered by successive monarchs without any regard to their ethnicity in the first place. Directly at the French revolution in 1789, the citizenship was thought inclusive, and everyone living in France at the time was made French citizens (they were beforehand subjects of the French king), no matter their place of birth or ancestry, and enjoying France collectively as its sovereign territory. The concept was so inclusive that it has lead to the Jewish emancipation in 1791, and to the first abolition of slavery in 1794. From start, the French colonies elected 18 representatives at the French convention in 1792, among which Jean-Baptiste Belley, one of six representatives of Saint-Domingue, who played a key role in the abolition.

The concept of the French people has always been inclusive because of the large diversity of languages spoken all accross France untill the first world war. As such, it's can't be compared to the English people who did define themselves according to their ancestry, but more to the concept of British people which emerged later as more inclusive. By the end of the 19th century, when Germany and Italy each legitimated their country's unification on the idea of a common ancestry, Ernest Renan (already mentionned above by Calthinus) reaffirmed in 1882 the inclusiveness of the French people in its very definition with his conference "Qu'est-ce qu'une nation ?" which is pretty well summed-up by the author himself in the very last paragraph of his conclusion:

"Je me résume, Messieurs. L’homme n’est esclave ni de sa race, ni de sa langue, ni de sa religion, ni du cours des fleuves, ni de la direction des chaînes de montagnes. Une grande agrégation d’hommes, saine d’esprit et chaude de cœur, crée une conscience morale qui s’appelle une nation."

"I summarize, gentlemen. Man is not a slave to his race, his language, his religion, the course of rivers, or the direction of mountain ranges. A large, sane and warm-hearted aggregation of men creates a moral conscience called a nation."

After world war 2 and the Nazi occupation of France, This principle was definitely sealed in 1946 in the very first line of the preamble of the French constitution:

"Au lendemain de la victoire remportée par les peuples libres sur les régimes qui ont tenté d'asservir et de dégrader la personne humaine, le Peuple français proclame à nouveau que tout être humain, sans distinction de race, de religion ni de croyance, possède des droits inaliénables et sacrés. Il réaffirme solennellement les droits et libertés de l'homme et du citoyen consacrés par la Déclaration des droits de 1789 et les principes fondamentaux reconnus par les lois de la République."

"In the aftermath of the victory won by the free peoples over regimes that tried to enslave and degrade the human person, the French people proclaim once again that every human being, regardless of race, religion or belief, possesses Inalienable and sacred rights, it solemnly reaffirms the rights and freedoms of man and of the citizen enshrined in the Declaration of Rights of 1789 and the fundamental principles recognized by the laws of the Republic."

As such, the statement affirming the existence of a "French ethnicity" directly contradicts the whole French nation building, from the French Monarchs who never denied the plural identities of their subjects to our days. Now, people in the Americas do have rights to claim their French ancestry the way African Americans claim their African ancestry, but that makes neither "Africans" nor "French people" identifiable ethnicities in the first place. Maybe "French-Americans" could define themselves as a separate ethnic group if that suits them. It doesn't change the fact the French ancestry of the people from Louisiana just like the British ancestry of people from Boston don't make them "French" or "British". And I'm sorry to say, but pushing POV this way, in total denial of what French people themselves constantly reaffirmed during so many centuries is not what an encyclopedia should stand for. This is to me a major mistake here which needs being immediately corrected. Metropolitan (talk) 15:11, 18 August 2018 (UTC)

I absolutely agree with Metropolitan's eloquent reasoning here.--Calthinus (talk) 15:48, 18 August 2018 (UTC)

The only thing that define "French people" is "people living or being born on the French territory" (French citizens). That represent 66 millions people in France, around 150 000 in UK and some others country, and that's it. Knowing that, in no case people from Lousiana or Acadia can define themselves as French people, despite of their French ancectry.Sesto Elemento 08:36, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

French people never defined their "Frenchness" according to their ancestry.

This is untrue. Since the middle ages, French people wondered who their ancestors were. Different theories were elaborated: the theory of the Troyan ancestry and the one of the Frankish ancestry. In the XVIth century, the gauls were rediscovered and they became the "official" ancestors of the French in the XIXth century. It doesn't matter if these theories were true or false, but it clearly demonstrate that French people have at multiple times in their history tried to justify their existence by their past. There were already some ethnic elements which were discernible in the middle ages. Anthony D. Smith (among others) explain how French identity built itself around what he calls an ethnic "core" based in the île de France region which slowly assimilated populations from northern, and then later, southern France.

The term "France" and "French" in the middle ages was polysemic. It could refer to île de France only, to the whole kingdom or only the lands north of the Loire. I advise you to read "naissance de la nation France" written by the French medievist Colette Beaune which explains in more details what I just wrote.

Furthermore, there are some surveys conducted since the 1990s which demonstrate that, in opposition to what says the law, people with French ancestry in France identify with their origins. If you look at the Pew Research Center survey about christians in Western Europe which was released earlier this year, we can find that 64% of French people identify as Christians (the majority being non practicing).

In the article we can read:

"For example, in France, nearly three-quarters of church-attending Christians (72%) say it is important to have French ancestry to be “truly French.” Among non-practicing Christians, 52% take this position, but this is still higher than the 43% of religiously unaffiliated French adults who say having French family background is important in order to be truly French." which mean that a majority of French people in the survey linked their national identity with ancestry. I'm not saying it's a good thing, but simply that this dichotomy exists within French society. Around me, everyone knows what their ancestry is, even if they don't automatically believe that people of non-French ancestry are not French, which they are.

Link here: http://www.pewforum.org/2018/05/29/being-christian-in-western-europe/pf_05-29-18_religion-western-europe-00-09/

France is the mixture of multiple Celtic, Italic and Germanic peoples (among others)

It is well known by historians today that the Romans and Germanic peoples of the barbarian invasions only entered in a small proportion on the territory of what is now France. But for sure, they had a great influence on French culture.

Besides, the civic/ethnic dichotomy is more and more thought to be a false one. Every nation carry elements of both, even if the civic one predominates in some of them and the ethnic one in others. Moreover, since Germany became a country of immigration, it has completely redesigned its identity in order to integrate newcomers.

Now, people in the Americas do have rights to claim their French ancestry the way African Americans claim their African ancestry, but that makes neither "Africans" nor "French people" identifiable ethnicities in the first place. Maybe "French-Americans" could define themselves as a separate ethnic group if that suits them. It doesn't change the fact the French ancestry of the people from Louisiana just like the British ancestry of people from Boston don't make them "French" or "British".

Yes, that make them "french americans" or "african americans". They recognize themselves as such and are recognized in their society as such. "Africans" don't exist as an ethnic group in Africa because there are numerous ethnic groups on this continent, but "african americans" exist as an ethnic group in America. Besides, "french americans" don't need the agreement of French citizens to declare themselves as French.

As was said by the ethnologist Fredrik Barth in his essay "ethnic groups and boundaries" (whose work on ethnicity has weighted enormously in the field) "ethnic groups are categories of ascription and identification by the actors themselves". This theory predominates today in the field of ethnology.

The link of his essay is here: http://graduateinstitute.ch/files/live/sites/iheid/files/sites/mia/shared/mia/cours/IA010/Barth%20Introduction%20Ethnic%20Groups%20and%20Boundaries%20.pdf

And I'm sorry to say, but pushing POV this way, in total denial of what French people themselves constantly reaffirmed during so many centuries is not what an encyclopedia should stand for. This is to me a major mistake here which needs being immediately corrected.

What does it mean exactly? If you insinuate that I should supress my comment, I won't. By the way, it's not "French people" who affirmed that, but the French constitution, which is very different. You're the one in denial here. If you think that what I wrote is xenophobic or what, well you're totally wrong. I'm just stating that processes of ethnic differentiation exist in France, whether you like it or not.

I think the comment you made confirms what I said previously, ethnicity is a completely taboo subject in France and some people have an irrational fear of talking about it. But I'm sorry, that doesn't mean it doesn't exist. I think that I could not have any constructive debate here, so I'm going to stop there, it will be better for everyone. Peculiar1943 (talk) 19:24, 19 August 2018 (UTC)

Peculiar1943 I actually agree with you too -- and some of the stuff you're citing was added to hte page by me. Imo there are different positions among French in reality-- however, that the French are a specifically "Romance" ethnic group that is more related to Sicilians or Sardinians or Aromanians than other nations they've influenced/been influenced by (Germanic peoples including Dutch especially via the shared Frankish heritage, as well as Germans and English, and let's not forget the significant influence of the Gauls), that is a bit of a fringe view. Of course it would be equally fringe to claim a mainly Celtic or mainly Germanic identity which would imply some sort of feeling of kinship with the Irish or the Swedes, both of which also do not exist except in the pan-European sense. Romance language, yes, but this simply isn't how identity is expressed in France (Italy and Romania are different in this regard as they do have a sense of "Latin brotherhood" which France doesn't so much have).--Calthinus (talk) 14:20, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

Indeed, people define themselves according to their ancestry, everyone in the world does that, but an ancestry doesn't make an ethnicity. As you've mentioned it by yourself, the African-Americans identify according to their African ancestry, yet that's not a reason to consider there is an African ethnicity. If there is indeed a plurality of ethnicities in Africa, there is as well a plurality of ethnicities in France.

The thing which is important to understand is that most of modern Western European nations which resulted from old kingdoms constituted their territory at a time when the question of ethnicity was of poor relevance, and they only later constituted themselves as nation-states from the 19th century onwards. This is true for Spain, Portugal, Belgium, the Netherlands, France or the UK. In all those countries, the national identity relies a lot more on citizenship than on ethnicity because the state, as a political entity, predated the emergence of a common identity. Things are different in Eastern Europe where countries emerged from a preexisting culture or ethnicity. People from Dunkirk are as much culturally and ethnically Flemings as the people from De Panne immediately accross the border. Yet people from Dunkirk clearly identifies as 100% French whereas people from De Panne, only 5 km away, clearly identifies as 100% Belgian. And neither the one from Dunkirk would appreciate being considered Belgian, nor the one from De Panne would appreciate being considered French.

As for the fact civic/ethnic is supposedly a false dichotomy on the basis every nation carries elements of both, why not, but then, why shouldn't we consider Americans as an ethnic group? None of Mexicans, Cubans, Brazilians, British people, Australians, Nigerians or Belgians are described as ethnic groups on Wikipedia, yet the French people, which is probably more diverse than many of them is considered one? For your information, 5 out of the 18 French regions are not peopled by a white majority, and they don't need to deny anything about their rich and various cultural heritages to be considered 100% French, and the reason for that is... because French is not an ethnicity in the first place. That's just not the way French people identify themselves to begin with: they identify according to shared values, yes, common cultural heritage, obviously, common ancestry, definitely not. That doesn't mean people don't identify themselves according to their individual ancestry or ethnicity, simply that it's not what makes them French. The question of Frenchness is not a matter of ethnicity and has never been.

As such, there is absolutely no taboo here, simply the acknowledgement of the plurality of identities and ethnicities which constitute the French people, as a single entity. What you accept without an ounce of doubt for Americans, Australians, Canadians or British people is true as well for French people, and for what it's worth, it's true for most Western European nations as well. Metropolitan (talk) 19:18, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

I'm going to be a little long here. Excuse me by advance.

Calthinus, I agree with you that French people have little to do with Sicilians or Aromanians, because the cultural influences are different. France (at least the northern part) received considerable amounts of Germanic influence. Southern France is originally more similar to its southern and eastern neighbours (Catalonia, Aragon, Basque Country, Piedmont or Liguria) and the French have a certain sense of individuality, as they are more "French" than anything else. In that sense, the feeling of "Latin brotherhood" is not so evident. But in history, France reaffirmed its Latin identity at multiple occasions. France has had a lot of contact with Romania since the French revolution, and until the second world war, they used to refer to each other as the "Latin sister" (soeur Latine in French). Those links are nowadays mostly forgotten in France. Italians refer sometimes to the French as "cugini d'oltralpe" which exists in France too (cousins transalpins), even if it's not always used. And we musn't forget that the expression "Latin America", even if not invented by him, was propagated by Napoléon III in order to oppose the concept of pan-Latinity to the Anglo-Saxon world. But I agree on the fact that French sense of "latinity" is not so evident today (and French people may not even agree with each other on the topic). On the influence of the Gauls, I'd say we can still perceive it in place names and maybe in folklore, but not so much on modern French culture, even if they obviously played a symbolic role in forging the modern French nation.

Metropolitan

African-Americans identify according to their African ancestry, yet that's not a reason to consider there is an African ethnicity

There is indeed no "African" ethnicity. But there is an "African-American" one. African-Americans originally descend from several African peoples which, after centuries of common history, came to distantiate themselves from their ancestors ethnic identity and to developp a common new ethnic identity. Different ethnic groups can melt in the course of history into one, and one ethnic group can divide itself at one time into different ones. So yes, it's an ethnic group. And there are no reasons to believe that after centuries of living in the US, an "American" ethnicity will not begin to emerge. Ethnic groups are not static entities, the ones which existed yesterday are not the same as the ones which exist today. By the way, if you don't think that African-Americans are an ethnic group and that Americans are not neither, which ethnic group do African-Americans belong to?

And I agree that, if you look back some centuries ago, even not so long ago, different regional populations in France had strong ethnic feelings (which was the case of the Gascons for example), but those feelings only remain today in few French regions of metropolitan France. I never found any writting on ethnology which classify the people from Limousin (or Corrèze) or Poitou as distinct ethnic groups as can be the English and the Welsh...but yes, if the tendancy has been toward homogeneization (since centuries in fact now) you can still find a lot of cultural differences from region to region (and I do not pretend otherwise).

The thing which is important to understand is that most of modern Western European nations which resulted from old kingdoms constituted their territory at a time when the question of ethnicity was of poor relevance, and they only later constituted themselves as nation-states from the 19th century onwards. This is true for Spain, Portugal, Belgium, the Netherlands, France or the UK. In all those countries, the national identity relies a lot more on citizenship than on ethnicity because the state, as a political entity, predated the emergence of a common identity.

In Spain and Portugal, national identity is still very linked to ancestry even if it's beginning to change. In Spain, three regions have a clearly distinct ethnic identity: Basque country, Catalonia and Galicia. In other regions, a lot of people would rather identify with a Spanish ethnic group, even if you can still find more or less ethno-regional sentiments depending on the region. The Dutch and the Portuguese are typically classified as ethnic groups. But I agree here, the state preceded the emergence of a common identity in those countries. But in England too in fact...

And you spoke previously about Italy being an ethnic state, I have lived in Italy and I can certify you that there are strong ethno-regional sentiments there in a lot of regions (and even some separatists ones).

I suggest you to read those pages:

https://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Venetian_nationalism

https://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Sardinian_nationalism

Things are different in Eastern Europe where countries emerged from a preexisting culture or ethnicity

Yes, it sometimes was the case. But it really depends on the country. In some regions, the "cultural groups" did not have any ethnic consciousness and were divided among different empires and kingdoms, thus were not "ethnic groups". Cultural groups are not the same as ethnic groups because in cultural groups there's no need for the group to be conscious of its distinct cultural features. And not all ethnic groups are culturally homogeneous. Germany is far from being culturally homogeneous from region to region, but that doesn't prevent Germans from still being an ethnic group.

https://books.google.fr/books?id=yV8No7NDDrsC&printsec=frontcover&dq=nathan+glazer&hl=fr&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjtrc3Vxf7cAhUH6RoKHVIcC3oQ6AEIYjAH#v=snippet&q=ethnic%20groups%20cultural%20groups&f=false (page 309)

I suggest you to look at the link, and the note at the bottom of the page.

why shouldn't we consider Americans as an ethnic group? None of Mexicans, Cubans, Brazilians, British people, Australians, Nigerians or Belgians are described as ethnic groups on Wikipedia

Modern American identity has been shaped mostly by Anglo-Saxon and European culture, and as such, people of non-white origins can still sometimes (not systematically obviously) be seen in a negative way (even Native Americans). A majority of Cubans, Brazilians, Australians...are descended from immigrants, you can't compare with France where a majority of French people have ancestry in this country. As for Nigerians, there are well delimited indigenous ethnic groups there, which is not the case in France for most regions.

Where I agree with you is the fact that French identity is primarily based on citizenship, thus every French citizen is French and this is this position which predominates. There is no need to argue here, everyone agrees with that. On the other hand, the rise of the far right in France is only one (not so good) of the point which confirms that the differentiation between "native" French and the various descendants of immigrants population is made, even among those who do not vote for the Rassemblement National. But that does not mean objectively that the descendants of immigrants are not French, they are. Ethnic identity in general is often latent, and is not necessarily an important marker of one's identity. But it doesn't mean that it doesn't exist.

The question of Frenchness is not a matter of ethnicity and has never been.

https://books.google.fr/books?id=aXTw9BTUIBMC&printsec=frontcover&dq=the+imaginary+australian&hl=fr&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjSsJ6v0f7cAhXqz4UKHWluDGsQ6AEIJzAA#v=snippet&q=france&f=false (page 51)

France, I repeat myself, has always searched since the middle ages for common ancestors to justify its existence. And the Gauls played a great part in forging the modern French nation.

As such, there is absolutely no taboo here

There clearly is a taboo in France about ethnicity and ethnic statistics, it's a quite known fact...

As such, even if I obviously agree that French citizens, whatever their ancestry or ethnic identity is, should absolutely be included in this article, talking about the French as an ethnic group is absolutely valid.

I know we cannot agree with everyone on everything and it doesn't matter. Now I'm going on vacation so I cannot respond anymore. Goodbye to you both. Peculiar1943 (talk) 22:37, 21 August 2018 (UTC)

Welp, for what its worth, if this ever comes back again, I'd like to make my stance clear. Imo-- but this is supported by sources I can fetch too -- there is indeed disagreement and inconsistency among the French presentation of their own identity in reality. However, the dominant and "official" view is that "français" describes allegiance to a state, not some blood/culture "tribe", and so it cannot be used in a tribal sense but rather includes anyone with allegiance to the French state's social contract, as per the works of Ernest Renan and other French philosophers which became the state ideology. I do not think anything contradicting this belongs in the lede-- in this I believe I am in agreement with Metropolitan. The lede is not the place to present "alternative" views.

Things that do get said like "Nos ancetres les Gaulois..." has never (except on the fringey far right) been taken to mean that those who do not have "ancetres qui sont Gaulois" are somehow in any way less French-- to ever imply so would be extremely offensive. You can see this in French rebuke to Trevor Noah's statement about the World Cup -- African-descended football players just like African-descended office workers, scientists, salesmen, doctors, whatever, are not in any way less French than any others. Furthermore, in France you do not have "hyphenated" "ethnic" identities like in America -- there are no Cambodian-French, only French people of Cambodian descent. Lastly regarding religion -- I'll go on record saying I would oppose mention of Christianity as some sort of "French identity trait" unless the important French concept of laicité is also mentioned next to it.--Calthinus (talk) 04:06, 22 August 2018 (UTC)

I totally agree with Calthinus, the most decisive point being that the lead paragraph is indeed not the place to present alternative views, as clearly stated in Wikipedia guidelines [1] [2]. Metropolitan (talk) 09:10, 22 August 2018 (UTC)

93 million french people in the world ?

Hello Wikipedians,

I think that the current infobox at the beginning of the article is quite misleading. The number of french people and its decomposition are a bit wacky. For sure, almost nobody in France would consider as French a USA or Argentina citizen with a great-great-grandfather coming from France. So there might be 10,329,465 people in the US and 6,800,000 in Argentina with french ancestry, but it doesn't make them "français" in any way.

Even regarding Canada, the numbers are really far-fetched. Maybe the 8,790,250 number of the infobox actually refers to french-speakers, but I doubt they regard themselves as french and they are certainly not regarded as such in France where they are called Québécois (and not french-canadians as in English).

Thinking of a people as an ethnic or racial entity might be appropriate in many cases, but it doesn't make much sense for the French people. A more appropriate ways of listing the distribution of french people across the globe would be to use (imperfect) government data regarding french citizens residing outside France. There are available here : https://www.diplomatie.gouv.fr/fr/services-aux-citoyens/inscription-consulaire-registre-des-francais-etablis-hors-de-france/article/la-communaute-francaise-inscrite-au-registre-des-francais-etablis-hors-de

I hope this remark will be taken into consideration. --Tsab (talk) 12:37, 12 March 2018 (UTC)

I completely disagree, Tsab. French people in terms of Citizenship and French people in terms of ethnicity are two different things and I am against this very modern obsession with conflating the two. There are millions of people who live in France and who have obtained or were born into citizenship who are not ethnically French, and careful wordplay, political ideologies and legal frameworks don't change that. If anything, it is the descendents of Ethnic French - such as Quebecers, Acadians, Cajuns along with other peoples of French or partially French blood and/or cultural descent - who SHOULD ABSOLUTELY be included, and the citizens who are NOT French - e.g. ethnically Fulani Mr. Michael N'doubou from Mali with French citizenship - who are excluded, as is how it works for numerous other ethnic groups pages such as Mongolians, who list as populations of the Mongolian people both Buryats and Kalmyks - who are Oirat Mongols who've been separated from Mongolia for hundreds of years just like Acadians and French Argentines - but not ethnically Russian citizens of Mongolia who have lived in or were born in Mongolia over many decades. The same goes for Irish people, Scottish people, Hungarian people, etc. etc..

Also, this is not necessarily directed at you but I feel like both academic and everyday discourse has a growing set of double standards with how they treat and perceive people from Western countries compared to how they treat and perceive people from non-Western countries, and on Wikipedia this can lead to WP:BIAS and WP:POV. Just think, with regards to ignoring ethnicity, descent and culture and listing people by citizenship instead, would you see yourself arguing this on the Wikipedia article for Korean people? If so then the Koryo-saram would be no longer counted as ethnic Koreans (even though they are) and Europeans, Indians and Afro-Americans in Korea would be counted as ethnic Koreans (even though they aren't). If someone would find such a change strange for the article for Koreans but normal for the article on French, maybe they should reflect on what latent prejudices are causing this double standard.

ReformedPenal (talk) 14:24, 25 May 2018 (UTC)

I absolutely agree that talking about "citizenship" is different from "ethnicity". But also "ethnicity" is different from "ancestry". Some citizenships are not ethnicities and the reverse is also true, depending on the country of interest. In France, being "French" is usually not being conflated with having French ancestry (although they are people harbouring such notions), because French language and culture became widespread within France only recently but people were considered French nonetheless although of different ethnic groups and ancestries. Also, large numbers of immmigrants arrived in France in the 20th century, so that 1/3 of the current population has at least one foreign-born grand-parent. Some regional or immigrant identities are closer to what you seem to perceive as ethnicities. In the Balkans, being Albanian or Serbian does have an "ethnic" meaning and not only a legal one. In that respect being "French" is closer to being "Yougoslav" (similar population, simular superficy, both are identities supposed to be greater than race or religion).

Being of french blood does not make you an "ethnic french". Some elements of culture and self-identification has to be taken into account, otherwise all these wikipedia pages about "peoples" are just some kind of weird racial classification. Since I seriously doubt that 10 millions Americans speak French or consider themselves culturally French, I do not think they should be included in that listing.

Your point regarding the double standard is fair. Quite often Europeans tend to talk in a different manner about non-Europeans than they would talk about themselves (insisting on the "ethnic" or "tribal" nature of some conflict for instance). I do not know Korea as I know France and Europe, but I would find perfectly normal to consider people of American or African ancestry living in Korea, speaking Korean and being of Korean culture as ethnic Koreans. But the real matter is whether such people exist and would be accepted as Korean by the rest of the population. Since it is often reported that Koreans consider racial origin as an integral part of what being Korean entails, I doubt so. Maybe being recognized to belong to the Korean people relies on an ethnic factor but it is not the case for the French people. And ultimately this page is called "French people" and not "French ethnic group", so the number of french person and its decomposition should reflect what it means in usual media, academic and political discourse. There is no "one size fits all" definition of a people.

Tsab (talk) 15:43, 5 October 2018 (UTC)

I'm afraid you are only describing the difficulty with articles such as these, in that they attempt to cover both ethnicity and nation. They are invariably an uneasy mix that doesn't bear much analysis. There is no precise science defining where the boundaries of both lie, particularly in ethnicity which is a minefield of differing opinions. I don't think there is a solution to the problem, and attempts at resolving it (e.g. dividing the two) usually end in something even more problematic. Consequently, I'd take any of the headcounts quoted with a pinch of salt. The peoples counted mean different things to different people. --Escape Orbit ^(Talk) 15:42, 25 May 2018 (UTC)

FRENCH ETHNY IS WESTERN EUROPEAN DNA

There is no genetic difference between populations of French and German origins. The French population except Corsican, Nice and other annexed populations come from the Franks branch, GERMANIC PEOPLE. French people like to compare themselves to southern Europeans, but there is a big ethical-cultural difference between these two entities.--81.67.166.149 (talk) 11:58, 27 December 2019 (UTC)

Your opinions are noted. Do you have any reliable sources to support them? Please do not blank content in the article until you have both reliable sources and consensus, thanks. --Escape Orbit ^(Talk) 12:17, 27 December 2019 (UTC)

The Franks people adopted a Romance language, but genetic studies show that the French have the same genotype as the German populations. The ethnic branch was denominated "Western European DNA"--81.67.166.149 (talk) 12:33, 27 December 2019 (UTC)

I'm going to delete "romance ethny group" because it doesn't make sense. romance is not an ethnic group but a linguistic group. the french are western european DNA. I invite to debate what would not agree before I re-change these idiots.User:Krakkos is part of.--81.67.166.149 (talk) 17:08, 1 January 2020 (UTC)

Please do not throw insults at other editors. You'll find it is not productive and will end in you being blocked as disruptive.

I don't think anyone is claiming that "Romance" is an ethnic group, but this article is not about an ethnic group. As I note above, a precise definition of "French people" has been impossible to establish, and so this article is a bit of a mixture. If you have a better definition, please suggest it, but please do not simply blank content on the article. You do not have consensus for doing that. --Escape Orbit ^(Talk) 21:29, 1 January 2020 (UTC)

The numbers in the infobox are largely fictional

They combine:

• The total population of France (of all ancestries and citizenship).
• The Americans, Canadians and Australians who declare french ancestry, supposedly according to censuses. In all three cases, the number given is contradicted the source. Of these three groups, only the Canadians are largely french speakers.
• The Argentines who have french ancestry, according to a flimsy non-scientific source (a mention in a guy's radio talk).
• The Brazilians who have french ancestry, according to a non-scientific source (a spreadsheet from the french embassy in Brazil).
• The Chileans who have french ancestry, acccording to no source at all.
• The "French people" in Italy, in an unspecified sense, supposedly according to another non-scientific source (christian missionaries). The number given is ten times bigger than the one in that source. For that matter, the same source decides that there are 46 million french people in France, and that Provencal, Langudocian, Alsatian, Auvergnat and Gascon are their own ethnicities but the other regions of France are not.
• The French citizens residing in countries including Switzerland, Germany, the UK, Belgium, and Spain, according to various official data. The figure for the UK cannot be verified online. The figure given for Switzerland is contradicted the swiss official statistics given as a source.
• The French people (unspecified sense) in Madagascar according to a book. The high number suggests that they included people of partial french ancestry.

Etc...

And then, we get a total of 95 million! Even if the numbers above were reliable and homogenous, this would be original research - no source states that there are 95 million french people. In this case, this is also adding apples and oranges and working with garbage data.

Given that there is no consensual definition of french ethnicity (as this talk page demonstrates), I think that the task of counting "ethnic french" people is hopeless. I question the need of having an infobox at all in that article.--GrandEscogriffe (talk) 16:04, 22 December 2019 (UTC)

Have to agree. The problem is definition, which is not consistent across the numbers. There has been a long standing issue with this article on how "French people" should be defined, so we are stuck with this loose and varied definition. So even if it is agreed that each of the individual numbers are, in some regard, 'French', adding them up in this manner is suspect.

So I'd suggest removing the total number completely unless a good source is found that gives one (along with a precise explanation of how it was defined). --Escape Orbit ^(Talk) 16:43, 22 December 2019 (UTC)

February 2020, and further to the above, I have challenged the reinsertion of the 76.8 million figure into this infobox. The first time the source failed. Second time the source works although I would have to pay money to verify the figure. Nevertheless I don't think I need to. Editors are copying this source from French Language and not even bothering to update the access date. The number appears to be one of two figures ethnologue provides. 76.8 million is first language speakers of French and 274 million is all French speakers worldwide. I suspect the source checks out on these, but as per the discussion above, this still gives us a pretty fictitious figure. They are correct for the French language page as they are the number of speakers, but this page is about the French people. As discussed in this talk section, French ethnicity outside of France is a rather hazy concept, but we cannot use language as a proxy for that. A moment's reflection reveals why: First language speakers would include people from Wallonia and Switzerland in Europe, and there would be first language French speakers in other places around the world where the speakers do not consider themselves ethnically French. I don't think this source satisfies the concerns above, and so we should still not attempt to have a total population figure. At least, not this one. -- Sirfurboy (talk) 14:44, 11 February 2020 (UTC)

Adding Germanic People to the lead

The user User:Sundayclose what are you talking about ? these are scientific sources wikipedia is not yours. you can't censor what you don't like--89.159.52.232 (talk) 18:35, 22 March 2020 (UTC)

I too was about to revert the edit you had attempted - someone beat me to it. It is not just the quality of the refs that is the problem (please read WP:RS to see the issues). It is also the fact that you threw in three new sources and two citation needed templates into the lead. The lead of an article summarises the main, and does not need excessive sourcing because the sources are in the main. There should be nothing in the lead that is not in the main. I would support someone (perhaps not you now, as you are up against WP:3RR, and we would not want any misunderstandings) adding ", Franks" after Gauls in the lead, because that would summarise information in the main. I oppose your other edits to the lead.

Hello User:Sirfurboy, I did not understand the reason for your opposition. You do not dispute genetics and science but you dispute the fact that I put 3 links ? I'm just trying to write the truth and not offend the users. The French have colonized Senegal and we don't say that the Senegalese have French blood. Do you see the controversy ?--89.159.52.232 (talk) 19:29, 22 March 2020 (UTC)

Hello User:Sundayclose I don't want to get into a game without interest. I would like to know the reason why you consider that French people are not Franks. Is it my references that need to be changed or my way of writing it or are you opposed to saying that ? I'm absolutely not trying to contradict users, I wanted to increase the information.--89.159.52.232 (talk) 19:49, 22 March 2020 (UTC)

(1) As has been explained, a blog posting on Ancestry.com is not a WP:RS. Please click that link and have a read about what constitutes good sources for wikipedia. (2) you appear to have misread the situation. That ancestry article does not say that French are Germanic people. This is not a forum so no need to discuss why - just to say that you would need to find a good secondary source making the claim you wish to make before reintroducing the claim. Note that saying there is genetic similarity between Western Europeans is not saying all Western Europeans are all Germanic people. (3) The lead is a summary of the main. You need to update the main article and then you can update the summary in the lead. (4) Genetics is not everything. Have a read of this page (especially the section "Nationality, citizenship, ethnicity") to understand more. -- Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 21:01, 22 March 2020 (UTC)

FRENCH PEOPLE

There is a serious consensus between what the French want to be and what they are. The genetics are formal, the French are a Germanic people. We must differentiate between the language which is Romance and the genetics which is Germanic. Scientifically it is moreover not possible to make out the DNA difference between a French and a German or Belgian Dutch Luxembourgish. the french are neither italian nor greek nor south european. Know what you want to tell readers. if we speak of people of population the French are Germanic, but if we speak of culture it keeps a Romance language.--89.159.52.232 (talk) 18:56, 22 March 2020 (UTC)

i want to erase "French people are the descendants of Gauls and Romans (western european Celtic and Italic peoples)" by French people are the descendants of Gauls and Franks. As is customary to ask I do it here. we have to mark the truth whether it likes it or not. The sources on genetics can be found in an unlimited number--89.159.52.232 (talk) 19:09, 22 March 2020 (UTC)

As I said to you in the previous section, you need to find a reliable secondary source that discusses this issue and says that the French descend from the Franks (among others). Then you can summarise the source. Note that Ancestry.com blogs are not a WP:RS and in any case that article merely says that Western Europeans are all closely related to each other and makes no claims that the French are "Germanic" (which would misapply a linguistic classification to genetic populations). -- Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 09:35, 26 March 2020 (UTC)

References