"The French are a Romance ethnic group" first sentence in lede
editI 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. I think the introduction of the French version of the article is much better written. I would propose a direct translation.
- The French people are all persons enjoying of French nationality individually and France collectively as a sovereign territory, as a people and as a free nation.
- Historically and genetically, the French descend from different peoples. The ethnonym that refers to the German-speaking Franks has survived and now applies to the modern French. Until the end of the nineteenth century, France was still a mosaic of local and regional customs and identities, notably at the linguistic level. Since the beginning of the twentieth century, most French people speak French as their mother tongue, but some languages such as Alsatian, Norman, Occitan, Auvergnat, Corsican, Basque, French Flemish, Creole or Breton remain spoken in certain regions (see: Linguistic policy of France).
- Because of history and its geographical position between Northern Europe and Southern Europe, France has always had many migratory movements. Recently, this immigration became a notable phenomenon by the 1920s, particularly to replace the millions of men who died or became disabled as a result of the First World War, a trend that intensified after the Second World War with the reception of populations from outside Europe (North Africa, Sub-Saharan Africa, South-East Asia...). Starting from a definition of France as an inclusive nation with universal republican values, a historian like Gérard Noiriel considers French society as a melting pot. Thus, universal values were used for the individual assimilation of immigrants who had to adhere to traditional French values and cultural norms. Since the mid-1980s, governments have been criticized for letting newcomers retain their distinctive cultures and traditions, instead of assimilation, but sociological analyzes such as opinion studies belittle the reality of an evolution. French citizens have assimilated their nationality to their citizenship as does French law.
- For historical, cultural or economic reasons, the French and people of French descent can be found outside metropolitan France around the world; in the French overseas departments and territories such as the French West Indies, or in foreign countries such as Switzerland, Belgium, Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany or the United State or Argentina. Some of them claim a French cultural identity.
- Indeed, people define themselves according to their ancestry, everyone in the world do 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. 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 as every nation carry elements of both, this is true, 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 fully 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) 18:57, 20 August 2018 (UTC)