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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Mariano Menéndez (talk | contribs) at 22:44, 4 June 2013 (→French Argentine: new section). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

How is French ethnicity different from English?

In England, you've got the Anglo-Saxons, Frisians, Jutes, Danes, Normans, Picts, Irish, Britons, and Romans. How is this much different from France where you had the Gallo-Romans mixed with Franks, Normans, Burgundians, Iberians, Basques? In both cases you have a Celtic-Roman base conquered by Germanic tribes. Wiki claims that English ethnicity exists, yet French doesn't. When did French ethnicity become politically incorrect? Was it during the Revolution, the Empires, or one of the Republics? Pistolpierre (talk) 00:48, 1 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Can you point us to where WP claims ethnicity for the English? I think you raise an interesting question. --Nuujinn (talk) 01:14, 1 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
If you read the first sentence under "English people" it says the English are an ethnic group.Pistolpierre (talk) 01:16, 1 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Well, to be precise, it says "an ethnic group and nation", but yes, your point is taken. So the question is, should one change the "English people" article or the "French people" article, or leave things as they are. Now, the "English people" article wikilinks ethnic group, where I find "An ethnic group (or ethnicity) is a group of people whose members identify with each other, through a common heritage, consisting of a common language, a common culture (often including a shared religion) and a tradition of common ancestry (corresponding to a history of endogamy).", supported by refs. WP is not a reliable source, but if we take the lead from that, I think it's arguable that the French are as much an ethnic group as the English. But it's not a simple question, and we need some additional sources. --Nuujinn (talk) 01:23, 1 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
If the French and English are not ethnic groups, then neither are the Spanish. In Spain there were Celts, Iberians, Carthaginians, Greeks, Jews before the Romans and the Visigoths. Also the Italian and Greek ethnicities are suspect since the Etruscans, Sabines, Latins, Romans, Lombards, Normans, Spanish, Austrians, Macedonians, Mycenaeans, Cretans were all different peoples. It seems that either ethnicity is a myth in all five nations or something is wrong with the French conception of ethnicity.Pistolpierre (talk) 19:51, 1 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I understand your reasoning, but what you need are some reliable sources that define or describe french ethnicity. --Nuujinn (talk) 20:46, 1 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
"In Spain there were Celts, Iberians, Carthaginians, Greeks, Jews before the Romans and the Visigoths." No, in Spain, the Iberians were most numerous as compared with the invaders, Romans, Visigoths, .... In Italy, the Italic peoples were most numerous as compared with the invaders, Goths, Lombards, Normans, Spanish, Austrians, .... In France, the Gauls were most numerous as compared with the invaders, Romans, Franks, Burgundians, Visigoths, Norsemen.. The ethnic French are mostly of pre-Celtic/Celtic descent (mostly of Iberian and Ligurian descent in southern France). 88.178.38.7 (talk) 13:41, 9 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Nevertheless, if "French people" can only be defined as the citizens of France, then it is completely wrong to include 16 million US American citizens to also be "French people" (actually, the article claims there to be 120 million French people, although there are only about 65 million French citizens). How is it that when it is about American citizens, it suddenly becomes OK to count ethnicity? Why are not the French immigrants in the US just "American people", as is the premise for this article? And further, if there are 310 million American people in the US, and 81 million "French people" in France and the US combined, then the total population number in these two countries suddenly becomes 391 million people, although everyone knows that 65 million + 310 million = 375 million. For this article to make any sense, either remove the immigrant population in France, or the emigrant French people abroad. -TheG (talk) 14:19, 9 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The introduction reads:
   French people can refer to:
   - The legal residents and citizens of France, regardless of ancestry.
   - People whose ancestors lived in France or the area that later became France.
- Wikigi | talk to me | 08:31, 11 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I can see that, but there are actually no source for the latter point, and I question the relevance of the source used for the first point. As long as there are no sources for the definition of "two points" itself, the definition is OR and arbitrary. -TheG (talk) 18:05, 11 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Honestly there is no point in trying to argue this wikigi is a very agressive editor on this topic. Wikipedia considers english an ethnicity and not french simply because wikigi doesnt edit the english people page as he is french. 173.18.174.172 (talk) 17:12, 7 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Please focus on the content and not the contributor. "People whose ancestors lived in France or the area that later became France" seem unworkable to me, since there's no telling who that might include--if someone living where Paris is now back in 200 BC lineage could be traced to someone now living in China, we would not call them French, any more than we would characterize every person alive today as being African. I would suggest that a more reasonable limit would be to say that someone born in France is French, as are legal residents and citizens of France. --Nuujinn (talk) 01:11, 8 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Well its kind of hard not to get a little frustrated at you guys when you revert any edit related to the acknowledgement of a french ethnicity and cite crazy stuff that probably never happened as examples that we should keep it the way it is. I am not trying to change the article. I am just trying to explain on the talk page to other people why it is this way. And that they just shouldn't waste their time. 173.18.174.172 (talk) 22:04, 8 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I can understand your frustration, and discussions regarding ethnicity seem invariably difficult. Clearly there's some disagreement here, perhaps we can resolve it? --Nuujinn (talk) 23:03, 8 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
To be precise, I was pointing to the reason why the article claims so many French people, it doesn't mean that I agree with that. While it is clear that French are "the legal residents and citizens of France, regardless of ancestry" (thus regardless of their ethnicity), the others are barely descendants of French and, in my opinion, should not be listed in the infobox. There is a dedicated section "Populations with French ancestry" for that matter. - Wikigi | talk to me | 09:15, 9 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Wikigi, thank you for the clarification.
Would anyone object to limiting the scope to people born in France, regardless of current location, and legal residents (and thus citizens) of France, as a working "definition" of French people? That seems to me to be the best place to draw a line for this issue. --Nuujinn (talk) 14:29, 9 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]


There is certainly a such thing as ethnic French, and i can't believe someone just compared the modern French genetic make up to a group of early humans who lived on the African continent? Are you serious right now? FACT all populations on earth have people who are similar to each other in genetic make up. The Y-DNA & MtDNA of most ethnic French is of European stock. A minority no matter if they become a citizen WILL NOT be geneticaly similar to an ethnic French. It reminds me of the people who try to pass of German Jews as "Ethnic Germans", NO the average Ashkenazi Jew has Y-DNA & MtDNA different from the average ethnic German as the Jews differ from all European populations. Ashkenazi are actually closer to those in the middle east than they are ANY European population. This liberal media garbage trying to proclaim Europeans as some mixed up group of people who have no identity is just that CRAP. Europe is actually THE most homogeneous continent on the planet compared to either Asia, Africa, or South America. It does not matter who mixed with who Celts, with Normans, Saxons, with Angles THIS DOES NOT MATTER. ALL THESE GROUPS WERE OF EUROPEAN STOCK, and carried some of the same Haplogroups. A Germanic could carry the R1b haplogroup just as a Celt could. Many of the "Germanics" who inhabited Britain in the first place carried the R1b haplogroup rather than I1. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2602:306:C4EA:CA0:F481:792E:4CA7:D22 (talk) 00:04, 22 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Well as the purveyors of liberalism and multiculturalism, I think the French have lost the privilege of being called an ethnic group. Anyone who lives in France is french, anyone who doesn't is not french. DNA is a cursed contrivance of the capitalist anglo racists. 50.80.146.188 (talk) 00:54, 14 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Genetics

The references provided in the notes only lead to the article discussing the data, but not to the actual data (the ones used in the table). I haven't been able to locate any supplementary data in the online article.

I think it would a good idea to add a reference for the data, unfortunately I can't provide it. Maybe the person who made the table could do it ?

Bqnq (talk) 09:43, 6 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Article needs major work

This article sounds like it was written by a politically correct, assimilationist, left wing activist. It portrays the French people as some "salad bowl" of different ethnic groups, much like the population of America. This is absolutely false. There is a verifiable French ethnic group which heavily populates France. While the group's ancient origins lie in various Germanic and Celtic tribes, over the centuries, their cultures have formed into one French culture. Their peoples have formed into one French people. While it is true that most of Europe is experiencing mass immigration, it is important to remember that the original Europeans, such as the English, Scottish, Germans, and French, still exist among the newcomers. They still have their own separate cultures and origins. Citizenship and ethnicity are two different things.

For example, if a Chinese man moves to Sweden and acquires Swedish citizenship, that does not mean that his ethnic origins now lie in Sweden. He is a Swedish citizen, but is ethnically Chinese. If his ancestors continued to live in Sweden, they would be considered Chinese-Swedish. If a sustainable number of Chinese people immigrated to Sweden and created their own enclaves and communities, perhaps a Chinese-Swedish Wikipedia article would be written. Notice how the Chinese-Swedish are never considered ethnic Swedes.

The entire article is noticeably written to support this false belief. It reads like a government issued "Know Your Rights" paper and mostly discusses the legalities of French citizenship and naturalization. This is the only "people" article that I have seen written in this way. To those who are interested in improving this article, please see English people, Germans, and possibly some of the numerous American ethnic group articles for design ideas.

The French people have existed in Europe for many centuries, developing their own distinct culture, language, and history. They deserve better. Thanks--(Wikipedian1234 (talk) 16:53, 4 August 2011 (UTC))[reply]

PS - Josephine Baker was not French. She was an African American who acquired French citizenship. I will remove her from the list of French people in the infobox, but someone else will have to edit the picture. I will also remove the 'related ethnic groups' section, since its exists only to verify that "Europe is some great big family". It further proves that this article needs to be less leftist and more balanced.

Citizenship and ethnicity are indeed two different things. But what makes you think this article is about ethnicity and not citizenship? What's stopping an immigrant into France, a citizen of France, being part of the "one French culture"?
The reason this article discusses the legalities of French citizenship and naturalization is possibly because French law is very particular about it. So what happens on other articles is not necessarily a reason for the article to change. I believe the reason Baker was included was to demonstrate breadth to the different types of "French People". She spent half her life as a French citizen and therefore fits under the definition of French stated on the article.
However, if you feel the article is light on detail about the ethnic French, please do improve on it. --Escape Orbit (Talk) 22:27, 4 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The problem with this article is that it blurs the boundary between citizenship and ethnicity. I fear that this lack of clarity may mislead readers into believing that French ethnicity is entirely subjective based on French constitutional law. It is important for Wikipedia to have an article concerning the legalities of French citizenship. Blending French ethnicity and citizenship into one article was not the correct and honest way to describe ethnic French people.
While this idea has been repeatably rejected before, I feel that there should be two separate articles concerning French citizenship and French ethnicity. This debate has continued since the establishment of this article. Multiple users, including myself, have noticed this issue, which highlights that this is a real problem. The looming elephant in the room must be dealt with. Thanks--(Wikipedian1234 (talk) 23:56, 4 August 2011 (UTC))[reply]
PS- While Baker fits into the description of a French person according to the French constitution, her inclusion in this article was misleading. If this article is divided in the future, she will not be included in the ethnic French article.
Please read "Is there any recognized difference between French ethnicity and nationality?" section. This point has been discussed here over and over (see archive). Regards - Wikigi | talk to me | 08:45, 5 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I have read the discussions of the past, and there has been no clear consensus. My take on the matter is that the French government currently forbids the notion of a French ethnicity. Therefore, it has become politically incorrect to suggest that such an ethnic group exists. This is not right. Wikipedia should not be written to coincide with the views of politicians. The reality is that there is a group of people which has inhabited France for generation, long before any of this immigration began. I am no expert, but the prevalent claim is that the "original" people of France originated from many different tribes and therefore cannot be categorized into one ethnic group. Again, this is absolutely false. Many ethnic group across the world originate from various other groups of people. An often cited example is the English people, who descend from the original prehistoric inhabitants of the British Isles, Celtic tribes such as the Britons, Germanic tribes such as the Angles, Saxons, Jutes, and Norse people such as the Viking explorers and pirates and the Normans. The fact that the ethnic French people descend from Italic, Germanic, and Celtic people does not separate them from many other recognized ethnic groups in Europe or the world. They are an ethnic group with a verifiable, distinct culture, history and heritage.
I have also noticed that whenever someone proposes this debate, many users condemn them as ethnicists. I encourage all users who do this to spend five minutes researching ethnicism. An ethnicist, much like a racist, believes that his ethnic group is superior to other ethnic groups. No one in this debate has ever considered this French ethnic group to be superior to any of the ethnic groups of France. This claim is just as unfounded as the claim that a French ethnic group in nonexistent.
Splitting this article into two separate articles on French citizenship and ethnic French people would solve the problem entirely. Everyone who likes the inclusion of French citizenship and naturalization law in Wikipedia could have one article, while those interested in writing on the ethnic French could have the other.
The length and size of this debate does not mitigate the problem. This article is pretty much an extension of the article written on French citizenship. The boundary between citizenship and ethnicity needs to be reestablished. Thanks--(Wikipedian1234 (talk) 14:07, 5 August 2011 (UTC))[reply]
You would enhance your argument considerably if you could reference a good reliable source that defines the French as "an ethnic group with a verifiable, distinct culture, history and heritage." Then we would some indication that such a thing is even definable. Only once we have that does it become possible to even consider a spit between nationality and ethnicity.
Looking back through the Archives I see only one passing mention of "ethnicist". Most discussion has concerned content, not on the contributor. Delighted to keep it that way. --Escape Orbit (Talk) 16:41, 5 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I will find those sources and post them in a couple of days. Thanks--(Wikipedian1234 (talk) 15:37, 6 August 2011 (UTC))[reply]
It seems that I have been mistaken. Presently, there seems to be no verifiable universal "French ethnic group". However, that does not mean there aren't multiple ethnic groups within France. According to Ethnic groups worldwide: a ready reference handbook [1], there are distinct cultural groups within the 85 million strong "ethnic French" populous:
  • Burgundy
  • Brittany
  • Auvergnat
  • Alstace
  • Aveyronnais
  • Aquitaine
  • Occitan
  • Provence
It further states that while the traditional peoples of these lands have been assimilated politically and economically into France, their distinct cultures still exist. This is especially apparent in the peoples of Brittany and Alsace. Since it is illegal to collect information on ethnic groups in France, it is difficult to obtain accurate statistics on these groups of people. However, the book does give a population number of around 1.5 million for the Alsatians.
The only groups which seem to ethnically differ from the "original peoples" of France are the Bretons and the Alsatians. The Bretons have their own article, though the Alsatians do not. Just like the Bretons, the Alsatians have a language and history distinct from the rest of France. They speak Alsatian, a Germanic language distinct from both German and French, and are descended from nether the Gallo-Roman nor Frankish stock like most of the other cultural groups of France. They deserve more than a disambiguation page (perhaps a split of the Alsace area and Alsatian people?).
All of the political garbage surrounding this subject makes it a nightmare to research. However, I still believe that this article needs lots of work. The French government's assimilationist policies must not dominate this article. If readers would like to know about French citizenship, by all means let them read the article. The issue of French citizenship vs. ethnicity should be a subsection or maybe its own article. Perhaps in an article about the concept of an "ethnic French" group, the eight cultural groups I mentioned above would be discussed, with links to their main pages. Any thoughts? Thanks--(Wikipedian1234 (talk) 04:02, 11 August 2011 (UTC))[reply]

En la sección "Regions with significant populations", algunos no poseen fuentes (Ejemplo: Perú con 600,000) y otros estan incompletos (Ecuador). Saludos — Preceding unsigned comment added by 200.104.192.187 (talk) 21:10, 5 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

We really do need two different articles. One on French people as a nationality, and one on French people as an ethnic group. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indigenous_peoples_of_Europe shows French as an ethnicity, however, the French People article doesn't reflect this. There really should be a page somewhere on Wikipedia discussing the French ethnic group. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.70.236.248 (talk) 00:13, 22 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]


As long as some people will continue to understand the word "ethnicity" as a "racial/genetic/ancestry" term, we will fail to be able to define what french ethnicity is (as weel as any other ethnicity by the way).

An ethnicity is NOT defined by the belonging of the ancestors of the modern people that makes the ethnicity 2000 years ago... But the actual culture that have united those various individuals and still unite them in the history of the nation. The main "unifying" aspect of a people is the language, along with the political unity and sometimes the religion. The french ethnicity cannot being defined as the genetic mix of Celts, latins and Germanics... For the simple reasons that such a mix can have gave birth to many other ethnicities. Most other western Europeans, English, Spanish, Italians, Germans... can have in their genetic "pedigree" ancestors that were part of Roman, Celtic or Germanic peoples, without being at all of french ethnicity. French ethnicity exist and is defined by its culture (like Spanish, English, Italian or German ones), this is the fact of being rooted in the french culture that makes someone ethnically french, not the fact of having ancestors who were 2000 years ago either Roman, Celtic or Germanic.

We do no have to forget that those old "ethnic stocks" to which many people refers are not more genetic realities than french ethnicity. The people we call Gauls were celts because of their culture, not because of their genetic herency: It is very unlikly that the Celts (originally coming from central Europe) would have replaced the existing pre-celtic populations (ligurians, Basques and other pre-celtic populations we don't know much about outside the fact that they yet existed much before the celtification of their culture). So the Gauls were not probably in great part descent of those previous population, with maybe some influx of genome from the celtic invaders. The Gauls became celt because they adopted a celtic culture, celtic language. It is very likely that the population of Gaul did not had enough time to interbreed enough to form a more genetically homogenous population when the Roman arrived with their language and civilisation. When they arrived, the Romans (like the Gauls), where not an ethnicity in the genetic meaning, but a group of individuals whose ancestors were from various cultures and origins (etruscans, Greeks, Celtic, sabins, etc). At this time "Gaul" was not a country, and was not even fully "celtized"; it is more than probably that huge parts of the land did retain the pre-celtic cultures or language (especially Basque, but also ligurian and maybe others that we don't know much about). It was finally the same for the Germanic invaders that arrived at the fall of the Roman empire: they were a mix of individual from various tribes germanic by their language and culture, but whose ansestors were more likely a mix of the previous celtic populations of Southern Germany, with the "real" germanics from Scandinavia (to which we should add many peoples who were not Germanic such as the Huns, etc). Looking history like that, as it is really, we realize that thinking ethnicities as if they were homogenous "racial/genetic" groups or "stocks" that existed since ever has really no meaning at all. An ethnicity is something that is always moving and changing its components (like an organic being, like your own body), but keeping itself an individual entity thanks to the cultural herency, especially the language, that keep the components together and make them able to interbreed and mix. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.221.194.15 (talk) 15:08, 24 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

You are wrong, and seem to lack a proper understanding of genetics. You do understand that many of those different groups all carried the same haplogroups correct? The Angles & the Saxons were likely to carry the same R1b Y-DNA as the celts did. The reality is Europeans in general aren't that different from each other. Half of Europe carries the same Haplogroup R1b. Even those "Germanics" you claim to be pure have mediterranean admixture. Europe is the most homogeneous continent on the planet, but all of its haplogroups are of European origin. Over 70% of France carries the R1b Haplogroup, and the rest still carry haplogroups coming from Europe. Thats enough to claim the French as an ethnicity. An ethnicity IS NOT only culture and religion, and ethnicity is also when some share close genetic ties to each other, we have established that the ethnic French do INFACT have that. There is an ethnic French, as there are for every other nation in Europe saying anything else is pure delusion. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2602:306:C4EA:CA0:F481:792E:4CA7:D22 (talk) 00:14, 22 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Uruguay

According to French Uruguayan there is 300 000 people of french decent in uruguay,wouldn't it be nice to edit the list and add Uruguay after chile ? Shid0x02 (talk) 20:49, 1 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Why not? Gabriel Stijena (talk) 02:40, 13 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

In denial

The French gov't and whoever else are in denial. Even if their policy is nationality rather than ethnicity, you could still acknowledge the natural people or formula. Ethnic French people are a result of Gauls-Franks-Roman even Germanic tribes with other European tribes in its history. Then the Northern parts have more Celt and the South has Mediterranean ancestries and influence. France is no different than Spain or Italy, where the native people are a result of a formula from history, and are therefore the ethnic "homogenous" native people of the country. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.230.174.218 (talk) 18:29, 14 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Guillaume le Conquérant and the conquest of the English kingdom

This articles stipulates, about the so-called "Norman conquest" that :

"It was the Normans who, two centuries later, would go on to conquer England."

This is a ridiculous claim. If you translate it in the modern context, it would mean for example that the descendants of people who established themselves in the USA 200 years ago, thus in 1812, and assimilated the culture, religion, language, married the locals, and so on, are not "american people", but irish, italian, german, french, australian, etc. This sort of claim only serves to perpetuate the illusion of the english people that they weren't at some point in their history invaded by french people and ruled by a french "elite", an event which completely changed their political institutions, culture and language. Yes indeed, the english were invaded by their arch enemy, France, and conquered. This conquest is the founding event of modern England, which before hand did not exist. Just deal with it. It also serves to maintain the common myth in the anglo sphere that the French are utterly unable of any sort of military aptitude, much less prowess, which again is a ludicrous negation of historical fact. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.28.70.222 (talk) 01:37, 25 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I don't follow your argument. What exactly do you see as a problem in the article? The fact that conquest of England is referred to as "Norman"? --Escape Orbit (Talk) 09:48, 25 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Regions with significant populations

Add the UK: 200,000 - 300,000 (French born)in the UK according to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_migration_to_the_United_Kingdom

...according to this source (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-18234930): The French consulate in London estimates between 300,000 and 400,000 French citizens live in the British capital...i.e. that'd make the number of French people in the UK significantly higher — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kreutznaer (talk • contribs) 11:52, 28 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

French Argentine

According to this Wikipedia article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Argentine There's 6 millon French descendants in Argentina... why is this number so different from the Article's 14,444? Like Uruguay, can't this be changed too?

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