Reserving a large part of this article for the "French ethnicity" section give the illusion that this is an important criter when a French is wondering if someone else is French too. As a French, I'm not looking in the face of someone, wondering me if he seams to has French ancestor. Telling to non-French that Marie Curie is not considered by French to be French is absolutly false. She MUST be included in the "French people" section, because French, non-French, and herself was fealing she as a French. Being or not French is not a question of blood. Proning it leads to racism, and that's not the goal of an objective encyclopedia. --Duncan Idaho FR (talk) 18:01, 12 January 2008 (UTC)
If you want to consider Napoleon French by virtue of nationality, and the ideals of the French Revolution, even though he was "ethnically" Italian, that is fine. Same goes for immigrants from everywhere else that are born on French soil. However you shouldn't overlook the way that Pope Urban II and Bonaparte appealed to the ethnicity of the Franks and the "French" in order to use them for the Catholic Crusades and Napoleonic Crusades. Urban II, was a Norman and he appealed to Franks, not Gallo-Romans. Correct me if I'm wrong but Bonaparte did not appeal to massive amounts of immigrants to fill the ranks of the Grande Armée did he? He appealed to the villages throughout France where the men had no choice once they were drafted. Were there massive amounts of immigrants in France in 1789? I doubt it. Bonaparte called himself Emperor of the French. The "French" would imply everybody that was already there, not everybody that came after Waterloo, no? If there were massive amounts of immigrants in his army that doesn't change the fact that he was Italian and not French. It doesn't erase ethnicity. I wish it did.
Here in the United States, you cannot apply for a job without being asked to state your ethnicity. Modern Israel exists to a certain extent to protect Jewish ethnicity. If ethnicity were not real to Israelis would there be as much anxiety about granting right of return to the Palestinian refugees? Why are they conscious of being outnumbered in "their own" state? Does this anxiety not imply an ethnic fear or do you think it is strictly about terrorism? To me it is not simply a matter of Islamic terrorism and culture. If we deny ethnicity exists then that is to say that everybody is Jewish, Arab, white, black, Chinese, Polish, Irish, Hispanic, etc. That is utopian don't you think? Pistolpierre (talk) 19:21, 12 January 2008 (UTC)