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The French are the people of France and speak French (''le français''). "France" etymologically derives from the word Francia , a territory where the Franks , a Germanic tribe which overran Roman Gaul at the end times of the Roman Empire, lived. THE PROBLEMATIC DEFINITION OF THE "FRENCH PEOPLE" In defining the French people, one must first distinguish between the legal sense of the term and the ethno-cultural sense. In a legal sense, the French people are the Sovereign people of France , composed of all French citizens, ''regardless of ethnic origins or religious opinions''. The French people therefore comprise all French Citizens , including the French Overseas Departments And Territories . Henceforth, members from any ethnic group can be included in the French people, as long as they have French nationality, whether by '' Jus Soli '' ("right of territory") or by Naturalization . The second sense is not necessarily equivalent to the concept of ''Français de souche'' or "indigenous" French, which is often used by the traditional discourse of ethno-nationalist groups such as the , French national identity has been forged on the basis of citizenship creating an identitarian structure. Successive waves of immigrants during the 20th century were thus rapidly assimilated into French culture. Racial and cultural tensions persist among minority groups who, nevertheless, still identify as pertaining to France, sharing some bonds which transcend citizenship. The complexity of what it means to be French has led to multiple definitions of this concept, from narrow legal ones, to attempts to classify the French on the basis of their ancestry: According to Dominique Schnapper , member of the Constitutional Council Of France , ''"The classical conception of the Nation is that of an entity which, opposed to the Ethnic Group , affirms itself as an open community, the will to live together'' expressing itself by the acceptation of the rules of an unified public domain which transcends all particularisms" Dominique Schnapper , " La conception de la nation ", "Citoyenneté et société", ''Cahiers Francais'', n° 281, mai-juin 1997 . This definition is problematic for a number of reasons:
Many English-language sources, among them the U.S. Department Of State , define the "French people" as an ethnic group, consisting of a "Celtic and Latin" majority, with "Teutonic, Slavic, North African, Sub-Saharan African, Indochinese, and Basque minorities". ''Celtic and Latin'' could be viewed as the original "ethnic French" population originating in what today is considered metropolitan France. However, this definition is contested for a variety of reasons:
In past years, the debate on social ) Henceforth, 23 % of French citizens have at least one immigrant parent or grandparent. No recognized studies have been done covering wider timescales since mass Immigration started in the 20th century. Abroad, the '' must not be mistaken with French citizenship. For example, many French-speaking people living in Switzerland ( Romandy ) are not from France, are often not Catholic (in fact they welcomed Religiously Persecuted Huguenots ), are very proud of their own identity, and therefore may not consider themselves "French". Native Anglophone Blacks in the island of Saint-Martin hold the French nationality even though they do not speak the language, while their neighbouring Francophone Haitian immigrants may be able to speak some French yet remain foreigners. Furthermore, although most French people speak the French Language as their Native Tongue , there have been periods of history when large groups of French citizens had other first languages (local dialects, German in Alsace , etc). Large numbers of people of French ancestry outside Europe speak other first languages, particularly English throughout most of North America , Spanish in southern South America and Afrikaans in South Africa . The United States Census Bureau and Statistics Canada collect claims of French ancestry and '''ethnic origin''' among U.S. and Canadian citizens, asking those individuals completing long form census questionnaires to define themselves. The questions asked in the United States and Canada were not identical, and the data collected may not be commensurable. However, this may not be sufficient in defining these people as an ethnic group, as some may not be necessarily "readily distinguishable" from other U.S. or Canadian citizens. Note that the data is extrapolated, from a very large sample, to produce national figures. Other countries' census figures for persons of French ancestry are also available in Mexico , Brazil , Germany , Britain , Australia , South Africa and other European countries, although French emigration is relatively low. French-cultural areas and enclaves exist for the Navarre region, Spain , the Aosta province, Italy , the Saar lander, Germany, and the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg . However, the countries of Greece , Romania , Portugal , The Netherlands , The Philippines and New Zealand has records of ethnic French descendants. See Also: History of the Jews in France HISTORY See Also: History of France The word "French" must not be mistaken with the modern concept of French citizenship, which is a heritage of the 1789 , a generic territory where people are bounded only by the French language and the assumed willingness to live together, as defined by Ernest Renan 's "''plébiscite de tous les jours''" ("daily referendum" about the willingness to live together). Countries with different notions of national identity, such as the USA or Japan , may judge this as an "identity denial." Persistent difficulties with French citizens with origins in Maghreb and West Africa is seen by some as signs of Racism and Discrimination , while others interpret it as the inevitable friction between sizable minorities and the majority culture. There is increasing dissatisfaction with, and within, growing cultural enclaves ('' Communautarisme ''). The 2005 French Riots that happened in difficult suburbs (''les quartiers sensibles'') were an example of such tensions that may be interpreted as ethnic conflict as appeared before in other countries like the USA and the UK. History of Gaul was influenced by Romans and Greeks. Aquitania was inhabited or influenced by Basques. Belgica was influenced by Germanic tribes.]] See Also: Gaul In the pre-Roman era, all of Gaul (an area of Western Europe that encompassed all of what is known today as France, Belgium, part of Germany and Switzerland, and Northern Italy) was inhabited by a variety of peoples who were known collectively as the Gaulish Tribes . Their ancestors were Celtic immigrants who came from Central Europe in the 7th century BC, and dominated native peoples (for the majority Ligures ). Gaul was conquered in 58-51 BC by the Roman legions under the command of General Julius Caesar (except the south-east which had already been conquered about one century earlier). The area then became part of the Roman Empire . Over the next five centuries the two cultures and peoples intermingled, creating a hybridized Gallo-Roman Culture . The Gaulish language came to be supplanted by Vulgar Latin , which would later split into dialects that would develop into the French Language . Today, the last redoubt of Celtic culture and language in France can be found in the northwestern region of Brittany , although this is not the result of a survival of Gaulish language but of a 5th century A.D. migration of Brythonic speaking Celts from Britain . The Franks See Also: Franks With the decline of the Roman Empire in Western Europe a third people entered the picture: the Franks , from which the word "French" derives. The Franks were a Germanic tribe who began filtering across the Rhine River from present-day Germany in the Third Century . By the early Sixth Century the Franks, led by the Merovingian king Clovis I and his sons, had consolidated their hold on much of modern-day France, the country to which they gave their name. The other major Germanic people to arrive in France were the Normans , Viking raiders from modern Denmark and Norway , who occupied the northern region known today as Normandy in the 9th century. The Vikings eventually intermarried with the local people, converting to Christianity in the process. It was the Normans who, two centuries later, would go on to Conquer England. Eventually, though, the independent Duchy Of Normandy was incorporated back into the French kingdom in the Middle Ages . 15th to 18th century: the kingdom of France See Also: Medieval demography In the roughly 900 years after the Norman invasions France had a fairly settled population . Unlike elsewhere in Europe, France experienced relatively low levels of emigration to the Americas , with the exception of the Huguenots . However, significant emigration of mainly Roman Catholic French populations led to the settlement of the provinces of Acadia , Canada and Louisiana , both (at the time) French possessions, as well as colonies in the West Indies , Mascarene islands and Africa . In the early 1800s, a small migration of French and western Swiss known as Walser s, named for the Swiss canton of Valais , emigrated by official invitation of the Hapsburgs to the Austro-Hungarian Empire , now the nations of Austria , Hungary , Slovakia and Romania . The Walsers were mainly Wine vintners who introduced a superior wine-growing industry, notably to boost wine production for the Tokay region in Hungary, and their families became culturally "Magyarized" within a generation in their adopted country. 19th to 21st century: the creation of the French nation-state The French , invented by Napoleon, and of the 1880s public instruction laws, which allowed mixing of the various groups of France into a Nationalist mold which created the French citizen and his consciousness of membership to a common nation, while the various regional Languages Of France were progressively eradicated. The 1870 , Freemasons , Protestant s and, last but not least, the '' Métèques '' ("metic"). France's population dynamics began to change in the middle of the 19th century, as France joined the Industrial Revolution . The pace of industrial growth attracted millions of European Immigrants over the next century, with especially large numbers arriving from Poland , Belgium , Portugal , Italy , and Spain . In the period from 1915 to 1950, just as many immigrants came from Czechoslovakia , Hungary , Russia , Scandinavia and Yugoslavia . A small "French" descent group arrived from Argentina and Chile in the 1970s, but they are culturally Latin America n instead of European. Small but significant numbers of Frenchmen in the North and Northeast regions have relatives in Germany and Great Britain . French law made it easy for thousands of ''colons'', ethnic or national French from former colonies of North and East Africa , India and Indochina to live in mainland France. In the 1970s, over 30,000 French colons left Cambodia during the Khmer Rouge regime as the Pol Pot government confiscated their farms and land properties. In the 1960s, a second wave of immigration came to France, which needed it for reconstruction purposes and for cheaper labour after the devastation brought on by ly white European and Christian for thousands of years. In 2004, total 140,033 people immigrated to France. Of them, 90,250 were from allows free movement between the member states. While the UK (along with Ireland ) did not impose restrictions, France put in place controls to curb Central and Eastern European migration. POPULATIONS WITH FRENCH ANCESTRY There is a sizeable population claiming ethnic French ancestry in the Western Hemisphere . The Canadian province of Quebec is the center of French life on the Western side of the Atlantic, however French settlement begin further east, in Acadia . Quebec is home to vibrant French-language arts, media, and learning. There are sizeable French-Canadian communities scattered throughout the other provinces of Canada, particularly in Ontario and New Brunswick . The United States is home to an estimated 13 million people of French Descent , or 4% of the US population, particularly in Louisiana , New England and parts of the Midwest . The French community in Louisiana consists of the Creoles , the descendants of the French settlers who arrived when Louisiana was a French colony, and the Cajuns , the descendants of Acadia n refugees from the Great Upheaval . In New England, the vast majority of French immigration in the 19th and early 20th centuries came not from France, but from over the border in Quebec, the Quebec Diaspora . These French Canadians arrived to work in the timber mills and textile plants that appeared throughout the region as it industrialized. Today, nearly 25% of the population of New Hampshire is of French ancestry, the highest of any state. It is worth noting that the English and Dutch colonies of pre-Revolutionary America attracted large numbers of French is named after La Rochelle , France, one of the sources of Huguenot emigration to the Dutch colony; and New Paltz, New York , is one of the few non-urban settlements of Huguenots that did not undergo massive recycling of buildings in the usual redevelopment of such older, larger cities as New York City or New Rochelle. Elsewhere in the Americas, the majority of the French descended population in South America can be found in , Subercaseaux, Bachelet , Blanlot , Beauchef , Chonchol , Letelier , Prajoux, Droguett, Fouillioux, DuVauchelle, Letelier, LaFourcade , Constant, Hameau, Vache, Hugo, LeCerf, Sardin, Tricot, Viaux, Blaise, Blanchait, Goulart, Hiriart, Chamot, Capdeville, DuBois, Ravinet , Rosselot , Chaigneaux, Daguerre, De L'Aire, Marchant, Moenne-Loccoz, Fontaine, Duhart, Bonvallet, Brunet , Lemoine, Morandais, Zalaquet, Perrot, Parot, Droguett, DesOrmeaux, Bairrolhet, Larroulet, Cathalifaud, Deformes, Crozier, and others. In Colombia, it can be found: Béthencourt, Béthancourt, Bétencourt, Bétancourt. In Argentina: Lanusse, Liniers, and more. In Brazil: Belfort, Bittencourt, Bitencourt, Brunet, Burnier, Calvert, Deschamps, DuBois, Dumont, Guinle, Lambert, Martin, Piquet, and others). Apart from Quebecois , Acadians , Cajuns , and Métis other populations of French ancestry outside metropolitan France include the '' Caldoche s'' of New Caledonia and the so-called '' Zoreilles '' and '' Petits-blancs '' of various Indian Ocean Islands . In Europe large numbers of Huguenots are known to have settled in the United Kingdom and in Protestant areas of Germany , (especially the city of Berlin ). Many people in this two countries still bear French names, even though their culture and identity are now completely assimilated. There are currently an estimated 400,000 French people in the United Kingdom, most of them in London . Sarkozy raises hopes of expats NATIONALITY, CITIZENSHIP, ETHNICITY According to Dominique Schnapper , "The classical conception of the nation is that of an entity which, opposed to the ethnic group, affirms itself as an open community, the will to live together expressing itself by the acceptation of the rules of a unified public domain which transcends all particularisms" This conception of the nation as being composed by a "will to live together", supported by the classic lecture of Ernest Renan in 1882, has been opposed by the French Far-right , in particular the Nationalist '' Front National '' ("National Front" - FN) party, which claims that there is such a thing as a "French ethnic group". Since the beginning of the Third Republic (1871-1940), the state has not categorized people according to their alleged ethnic origins. Hence, in contrast to the US Census , French people are not asked to define their ethnic appurtenance, whichever it may be. The usage of ethnic and racial categorization is avoided to prevent any case of discrimination, same regulations apply to religious membership data cannot be compiled under the French Census. This classic French republican non- Essentialist conception of nationality is officialized by the French Constitution , according to whom "French" is a Nationality , and not a specific ethnicity. Nationality and citizenship Despite this official discourse of universality, French nationality has not meant automatic citizenship. Some categories of French people have been excluded, through out the years, from full citizenship:
It must also be noted that France was one of the first countries to implement Denaturalization laws. Philosopher Giorgio Agamben has pointed out this fact that the 1915 French law which permitted denaturalization with regard to naturalized citizens of "enemy" origins was one of the first example of such legislation, which Nazi Germany later implemented with the 1935 Nuremberg Laws . See Giorgio Agamben , '' Homo Sacer : Sovereign Power and Bare Life'', Stanford University Press (1998), ISBN 0-8047-3218-3. Furthermore, some authors who have insisted on the "crisis of the nation-state" allege that nationality and citizenship are becoming separate concepts. They show as example " International ", " Supranational citizenship" or " World Citizenship " (membership to Transnational organizations, such as Amnesty International or Greenpeace NGO s). This would indicate a path toward a " Postnational citizenship". Beside this, modern citizenship is linked to Civic Participation (also called Positive Freedom ), which implies voting, Demonstrations , Petition s, Activism , etc. Therefore, Social Exclusion may lead to deprivation of citizenship. This has led various authors ( Philippe Van Parijs , Jean-Marc Ferry , Alain Caillé , André Gorz ) to theorize a Guaranteed Minimum Income which would impede exclusion from citizenship. P. Hassenteufel, "Exclusion sociale et citoyenneté", "Citoyenneté et société", ''Cahiers Francais'', n° 281, mai-juin 1997), quoted by B. Villalba of the Catholic University of Lille, ''op.cit.'' Multiculturalism versus universalism In France, the conception of citizenship teeters between ethnic, historic, economic, social, religious or cultural). The citizen thus emancipates himself from the particularisms of identity which characterize himself to attain a more "universal" dimension. He is a citizen, before being member of a community or of a Social Class It may be interesting to refer to Michel Foucault 's description of the Discourse Of "race Struggle" , as he shows that this medieval discourse - held by such people as Edward Coke or John Lilburne in Great Britain, and, in France, by Nicolas Fréret , Boulainvilliers , and then Sieyès , Augustin Thierry and Cournot -, tended to identify the French noble classes to a Northern and foreign race, while the "people" was considered as an Aborigine - and "inferior" races. This historical discourse of "race struggle", as isolated by Foucault, was not based on a biological conception of race, as would be latter Racialism (aka " Scientific Racism ") Therefore, according to Villalba, "a democratic nation is, by definition, multicultural as it gathers various populations, which differs by their regional origins (Bretons, Corsicans or Lorrains...), their national origins (immigrant, son or grand-son of an immigrant), or religious origins (Catholics, Protestants, Jews, Muslims, Agnostics or Atheists...)." Ernest Renan's ''What is a Nation?'' (1882) '' ("ethnic group"). This universalist conception of citizenship and of the nation has influenced the French model of that impregnated colonialism. Thus, in Algeria, the Crémieux Decrees at the end of the 19th century gave French citizenship to European Jews, while Arabs were regulated by the 1881 Indigenous Code. Liberal author Tocqueville himself considered that the British model was better adapted than the French one, and did not balk before the cruelties of General Bugeaud 's conquest. He went as far as advocating Racial Segregation there. 4 This paradoxal tension between the universalist conception of the French nation and the racism inherent in colonization is most obvious in Ernest Renan himself, who goes as far as advocating a kind of Eugenics . In a June 26 , 1856 letter to Arthur De Gobineau , author of '' An Essay On The Inequality Of The Human Races '' (1853-55) and one of the first theoreticians of " Scientific Racism ", he thus wrote: "You have done here one of the most noteworthy book, full of vigour and spiritfull originality, but it is not made to be understood in France or rather it is to be misunderstood. The French spirit pays no attention to , 1992, p 221. ''Jus soli'' and ''jus sanguinis'' See Also: French nationality law During the '' Ancien Régime '' (before the 1789 French revolution), '' Jus Soli '' (or "right of territory") was predominant. Feudal law recognized personal allegeance to the Sovereign , but the subjects of the sovereign were defined by their birthland. According to the September 3 , 1791 Constitution, those who are born in France from a foreign father and have fixed their residency in France, or those who, after being born in foreign country from a French father, have come to France and have sworn their civil oath, become French citizens. Because of the war, distrust toward foreigners led to the obligation on the part of this last category to swear a civil oath in order to gain French nationality. However, the Napoleonic Code would insist on '' Jus Sanguinis '' ("right of blood"). Paternity became the principal criteria of nationality, and therefore broke for the first time with the ancient tradition of ''jus soli'', by breaking any residency condition toward children born abroad from French parents. With the February 7 , 1851 law, voted during the Second Republic (1848-1852), "double ''jus soli''" was introduced in French legislation, combining birth origin with paternity. Thus, it gave French nationality to the child of a foreigner, if both are born in France, except if the year following his coming of age he reclaims a foreign nationality (thus prohibiting Dual Nationality ). This 1851 law was in part passed because of Conscription concerns. This system more or less remained the same until the 1993 reform of the Nationality Code, created by the January 9 , 1973 law. The 1993 reform, which defines the Nationality Law , is deemed controversial by some. It commits young people born in France to foreign parents to solicit French nationality between the ages of 16 and 21. This has been criticized, some arguing that the principle of equality before the law was not complied with, since French nationality was no longer given automatically at birth, as in the classic "double ''jus soli''" law, but was to be requested when approaching adulthood. Henceforth, children born in France from French parents were differentiated from children born in France from foreign parents, creating a hiatus between these two categories. The 1993 reform was prepared by the Pasqua Laws . The first Pasqua law, in 1986, restricts residence conditions in France and facilitates Expulsion s. With this 1986 law, a child born in France from foreign parents can only acquire French nationality if he or she demonstrates his or her will to do so, at age 16, by proving that he or she has been schooled in France and has a sufficient command of the French language. This new policy is symbolized by the expulsion of 101 Mali ans by Charter . The second Pasqua law on "immigration control" makes regularisation of illegal aliens more difficult and, in general, residence conditions for foreigners much harder. Charles Pasqua, who said on '' on June 2 , 1993 : "France has been a country of immigration, it doesn't want to be one anymore. Our aim, taking into account the difficulties of the economic situation, is to tend toward 'zero immigration' ("''immigration zéro''")". Therefore, modern French nationality law combines four factors: paternality or 'right of blood', birth origin, residency and the will expressed by a foreigner, or a person born in France to foreign parents, to become French. European citizenship See Also: Citizenship of the European Union The 1993 Maastricht Treaty introduced the concept of European Citizenship , which comes in addition to national citizenships. Citizenship of foreigners By definition, a " Foreigner " is someone who does not have French nationality. Therefore, it is ''not'' a synonym of " Immigrant ", as a foreigner may be born in France. On the other hand, a Frenchman born abroad may be considered an immigrant (e.g. prime minister Dominique De Villepin who lived the majority of his life abroad). In most of the cases, however, a foreigner is an immigrant, and vice-versa. They either benefit from legal sojourn in France, which, after a residency of ten years, makes it possible to ask for Naturalisation . This ten-years clause is threatened by Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy 's law proposition on immigration" If they do not, they are considered " Illegal Aliens ". Some argue that this privation of nationality and citizenship does not square with their contribution to the national economic efforts, and thus to Economic Growth . In any cases, rights of foreigners in France have improved over the last half-century:
Notable expatriates Many people have resided in France while maintaining their respective citizenships.
The National Front, multiculturalism and ''métissage culturel'' This 's '' Nouvelle Droite '' movement, quite famous in the 1980s but which has since lost influence, has embraced a kind of European " White Supremacy " Ideology . It should be noted that the expression ''Français de souche'' has no official validity in France although it is used in everyday language, something which has been designed as '' Lepénisation des esprits'' ("lepenisation of the minds"). Indeed, the inflow of populations from other continents, who still can be physically and/or culturally distinguished from Europeans, sparked much controversies in France since the early 1980s, even though immigration inflow precisely began to decrease at this time. See Michèle Tribalat, study at the INED already quoted. See also Demographics In France . The rise of this racist Discourse led to the creation of Anti-racist NGO s, such as '' SOS Racisme '', more or less founded on the model of Anti-fascist organisations in the 1930s. However, while those earlier anti-fascists organisations were often Anarchists or Communists , ''SOS Racisme'' was supported in its growth by the Socialist Party . Demonstrations gathering large crowds against the National Front took place. The last such demonstration took place in a dramatic situation, after Jean-Marie Le Pen 's relative victory at the first turn of the 2002 Presidential Election . Shocked and stunned, large crowds, including many young people, demonstrated every day in between the two turns, starting from April 21 , 2002 , which remains a dramatic date in popular consciousness. Now, the Interracial blending of some native French and newcomers stands as a vibrant and boasted feature of French culture, from popular music to movies and literature. Therefore, alongside mixing of populations, exists also a cultural blending (''le métissage culturel'') that is present in France. It may be compared to the traditional US conception of the Melting-pot . The French culture might have been already blended in from other races and ethnicities, in cases of some biographical research on the possibility of African ancestry on a small number of famous French citizens. Author Alexandre Dumas, Père possessed one-fourth black Haitian descent,5 and Empress Josephine Napoleon who was born and raised in the French West Indies from a plantation estate family. We can mention as well, the most famous French singer Edith Piaf whose grand-mother was a North African from Kabylie Aïcha Saïd Ben Mohamed (1876 - 1930) was born in Kabylie , ''Généalogie Magazine, N° 233, p. 30/36''. For a long time, the only objection to such outcomes predictably came from the far-right schools of thought. In the past few years, other unexpected voices are however beginning to question what they interpret, as the New Philosopher Alain Finkielkraut coined the term, as an "ideology of miscegenation" (''une idéologie du métissage'') that may come from what one other philosopher, Pascal Bruckner , defined as the "sob of the White man" (''le sanglot de l'homme blanc''). These critics have been dismissed by the mainstream and their propagators have been labelled as new reactionaries (''les nouveaux réactionnaires'')Le Point, February, 8 2007, even if racist and anti-immigration sentiment has recently been documented to be increasing in France at least according to one poll 6. Such critics, including Nicolas Sarkozy , the current President Of France , take example on the United States' conception of Multiculturalism to claim that France has consistently denied the existence of ethnic groups within their borders and has refused to grant them specific rights. President Jacques Chirac as well as the Socialist Party and other organizations have condemned these views, arguing that this refusal of the traditional universalist republican conception only favorizes Communitarianism , which the Republic does not recognize since the dissolving of intermediate associations of persons during the Estates-General Of 1789 (the population of the kingdom of France was then divided into the First Estate (nobles), the Second Estate (clergy), and the Third Estate (people)). For this reason, associations were forbidden until the Waldeck-Rousseau 1884 Labor Laws which permitted the creation of Trade Unions and the famous 1901 law on non-profit associations, which has been largely used by Civil Society in order to organizes itself. Hervé Le Bras, head of the INED demographic institute, also insists that "ethnicisation of social relations is not a 'natural' phenomenon, but an Ideological one" 7 LANGUAGE See Also: French language languages of France The French Language , the mother tongue of the overwhelming majority of French people, is a Romance Language , one of the many derived from Latin . In addition to its Latinate base, the development of French was also influenced, in both grammar and vocabulary, by the Celtic tongues of pre-Roman Gaul , the Germanic tongues of the Franks and the Norsemen/ Viking s who settled in Normandy . French is not the only language spoken by the inhabitants of France. Regional Language s are also spoken although many of these are Endangered Language s. Some of which, such as Occitan, Breton or Corsican, have been undergoing Language Revival since the 1970s, supported by Regionalist movements:
Other languages spoken in France or in French overseas territories include:
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