Talk:France/Archive 4

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

Archive 4

Archive 5

Archive 6

Archive 7

Image copyright problem with Image:Schuman Declaration.jpg

The image Image:Schuman Declaration.jpg is used in this article under a claim of fair use, but it does not have an adequate explanation for why it meets the requirements for such images when used here. In particular, for each page the image is used on, it must have an explanation linking to that page which explains why it needs to be used on that page. Please check

• That there is a non-free use rationale on the image's description page for the use in this article.
• That this article is linked to from the image description page.

This is an automated notice by FairuseBot. For assistance on the image use policy, see Wikipedia:Media copyright questions. --04:21, 4 October 2008 (UTC) HOLY CRAP I CANT FEEL MY LEGS;]<<<< whoever typed this rocks —Preceding unsigned comment added by 38.107.203.30 (talk) 20:42, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

Unlikely etymology for France. The name of the weapon "Francisca" is derived from the tribal name "Frank", NOT the other way round

This Wikipedia article falsely attributes the actual tribal name "Frank" (and hence the name "France") to the name of the throwing-axe weapon they used, the "Francisca" in Latin, or an alleged hypothetical name "Frankon". This is not credible. It is clearly attested that the name of this weapon came into Latin specifically because it was noted by Romans that this weapon was used by the Franks in battle. The name Franko(n) was the name that the Franks later applied to their domain, which was known in Latin as Francia, and ultimately became the name France.

Perhaps the authors of this article should consult the Wikipedia French language article on the Franks. The ultimate Germanic origin of the name "FRANK" is probably from a Germanic root "FREK-",. For example, "FREKKR" in Norse means "fierce, bold, valiant" .

I also found the Anglo-Saxon word "FRECA" which literally means "warrior, hero" and is attested in Beowulf, sometimes used to mean "wolf".

I was able to find support for this in the literature. In the book "An Historical Geography of France", by Panhol, Claval, and Lloyd, it is stated that this etymology was the interpratation of Isidore of Seville in the 7th century:

"A feritate morum nuncupatos", i.e. "named thus on account of their savage customs".

These words are echoed by Ermold the Black in the 9th century:

"Francus habet nomen de feritate sua", i.e. "The Frank is named for his ferocity".

Another possibility is a cognate with the Norse word for the Vikings that went into Russia, the Varangians, "Væringjar", from "vár" which means "pledge".

The notion that the name of the Franks was derived from the name of a weapon, like the name "Saxon" may be derived from the weapon "sax" or "seax" is not probable. For one thing, the "Saxon" is formed by a lengthening of "sax", whereas the opposite is true for "Frank" and "Francisca". The doubleheaded axe, the Francisca, is first attested in Latin texts in Spain, before this name was used in Gaul. As for the throwing lance or javelin, known in Anglo-Saxon as the "Franca" and in Norse as the "Frakka", again, the etymology of the weapon is clearly derived from the "Franks" themselves, and not the other way round. In Anglo-Saxon and other old Germanic languages, the "-a" at the end of "Franca" or "Frakka" denotes Genitive, Plural. Hence, the word literally means "...of the Franks", i.e. a Frankish-made javelin.

I believe the editors should update the article to reflect some of the information cited here. Thank you.

Jacob Davidson

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Franks" —Preceding unsigned comment added by 205.68.95.65 (talk) 18:49, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

Please move the name discussion from the "Rome to revolution" section to the "Origin of name" section and make it consistent. Fig (talk) 13:39, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

I am French and, at the school, we teached that the name of France is assigned at the tribe named "Franc" who invaded the Gaul--ZOTHOP (talk) 10:32, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

Too damn many pictures

Again several users found interesting to add lots of pictures to this page. We agreed it wasn't a touristic brochure and I'm not certain many of these have any use here but showing how beautiful our country is. I agree it's a lovely place but here it's just not the place to show this. I'm making a list here of pictures that I believe serve no purpose but showing a beautiful picture in itself. If people agree they should be removed Matthieu (talk) 15:01, 1 December 2008 (UTC).

• The Calanques and the Lavander fields of Provence in the Geography section serve very little purpose. Not to mention they are both of fairly similar places, at least one is totaly useless here. These show landscapes but are largely irrelevant to the overall geography of France. Someone seeing these pictures wouldn't be more aware of France's geography or climate or whatever. A topologic map of France could be much more relevant.
• Thats not a picture but Thomas Jefferson's quote is irrelevant to the history section, it has a close to 0 informative value. In what way his quote affected France or others' history?
• In the economy section two pictures serve the same purpose, the A380 and the European Union flag both examplify the fact the French economy is integrated to Europe. Which is a fair and informative point but one picture is enough. I suggest to removed the European flag one as the A380 is more relevant to the French integration into Europe's industry and economy than the European flag.
• The picture of Notre-Dame in the religion section serves no purpose. We already know, through the graphic above, that France is mostly catholic. The only reason that picture of Notre Dame is here is to show another landmark of France.
• The picture of Claude-Monet is useful in that it's important to have the picture of someone that is important to the French culture. However I am not certain Monet is the most relevant example.
• In the litterature there are two pictures, one of Moliere and one of Baudelaire. One is already enough, two is too much. I would advise removing Baudelaire's.

France is not a NATO member since De Gaulle

It is written in the article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_members_of_NATO#Member_states "France withdrew from the integrated military command in 1966 to pursue an independent defence system. However, there were plans for it to rejoin sometime in 2008, but hadn't joined until now". This should be mentioned, shouldn't it? --Schwarzschachtel (talk) 06:37, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

This is not accurate and is a common misconception, France never left NATO, only the integrated military command. France has always been a member of the alliance as a political entity. Beside which, from a military point of view, France has participated in many NATO operations such as in Kosovo and Afghanista and the French military operate with a lot of NATO standards and procedures. In practice, that meant that the French military was operating within NATO on a case by case basis after negotiations at the political level of the alliance and that French soldiers involved in NATO operations stay under French command at all time. The plans are to rejoin the integrated military command which it left in 1966, but it never left the alliance. Blastwizard (talk) 07:43, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

Agreed, France never left the NATO alliance BritishWatcher (talk) 09:32, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

This "symbol", cannot be seriously considered as the symbol of France

The only official symbol of French Republic is its flag... (Constitution de 1958) The other symbol (looking like coat of arms) have no real legal status. It is just in use for rare specific circumstances (like passport) when French authories have no other solutions than using it, because all other countries have similar stuffs... So, as a frenchman and teatcher of history, it is really strange seeing Wikipedia could considerate that as "symbol of France" !!!... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.2.101.42 (talk) 02:54, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

this symbol is used at the cover of passport and french diplomacy were using it since 1912, so we can considr it as a symbol of France. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.9.158.249 (talk • contribs) 01:24, 9 March 2009

I think this is beyond the point because it is part of the foreign relation section and as the Coat of Arms that represents France at the UN it should be shown. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.136.227.28 (talk) 14:29, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

Name of France

Can I ask how "Francia" "literally" "means" "Land of the Franks"? "Land of the franks" would in fact be "terra Francorum". Translating literally, Francia can only be transliterated, since the land known as Francia covered areas much larger than modern france. I don't know where "Frankland" has come from since this is an invented word. --86.146.215.169 (talk) 15:46, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

Suggestion: Science and technology

Somebody needs to write something about France's achievements in the fields of science and technology and perhaps how they compare to other nations. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.193.119.65 (talk) 02:48, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

Scientology and so on are not considered as CULTS, but as SECTS !!!!!!!!!!!

On the page, you can read

"France is a secular country as freedom of religion is a constitutional right, although some religious organisations such as Scientology, Children of God, the Unification Church, and the Order of the Solar Temple are considered CULTS.[42]"

Read the link [42], all those movements are considered as SECTS, please change.

It's a difference between French and English. In English "sect" means a (possibly strange) version of a religion, where "cult" means a dangerous religious group. In French the meanings are almost reversed. The best English translation for the French word "secte" is "cult". HughesJohn (talk) 16:02, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

== France was Victorious in ww1 & 15

Someone please explain that one to me. I thought France was lost in ww2 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.20.104.45 (talk • contribs) 16:53, 8 March 2009

For a while it was, but they found it again. FFMG (talk) 17:25, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

That's a nice one, FFMG. and to the other contributor, France lost in 1940, but the war was not over and Free French continued to fight. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.9.158.249 (talk) 17:02, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

You can not capitulate and also be victorious. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 205.132.119.8 (talk) 19:06, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

French fries and French toast were not officially made in France —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.158.237.22 (talk) 01:25, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

Was France even part of ww2 and who cares about french fries and french toast —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.158.237.22 (talk) 01:30, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

In WW2 Germany invaded after 6 weeks of battle France fell but several resistance groups fought throughout the enemey ocupation of France and into Allied insertion. they may have fallen Millitary wise but the citezens refused to give up. so yes they did fall at first but they managed to keep from total control by weakening German forces through guerrilla tactics http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Resistance go to that page that wil lclear some up for you alwo look at France history

—Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.255.65.203 (talk) 23:58, 13 July 2009 (UTC) 

The Free-French also fought all over the world as part of the Allies and once France was liberated she was able to raise an army to carry on fighting. France was one of the four occupying nations of defeated Nazi Germany, along with UK, USA & USSR. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.154.119.85 (talk) 18:41, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

The photo of the train named TGV" is taken in Avignon. it is not a "TGV atlantique" but "TGV Mediterrannén "

The photo of the train named "TGV" is taken in Avignon's railway station.

it is not a "TGV atlantique" but "TGV méditerrannén " I'm not shore sorry

do you kmow what paris is famous for now —Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.192.201.22 (talk) 14:02, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

France Size

France is the third largest country in Europe not second. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Lanqner (talk • contribs) 17:32, 17 May 2009 (UTC) If this is a protected page - does anybody bother to read the remarks of unauthorised editors? --Lanqner (talk) 16:33, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

Yes - so which are the first and second largest, and do you have a reference? (not that I'm doubting you, but that's how the system works...) Hadrian89 (talk) 18:33, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

Russia is the largest, Ukraine the second. If one wants to include France overseas territories, then one should also refer to countries which are not entirlely in Europe Turkey is larger than France and Kazakhstan is larger than France. I think one should limit itself to Europe itself and in this case France is the third largest after Russia and Ukraine. --Lanqner (talk) 10:10, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

I think whoever wrote that meant that France was the largest country in Western Europe, but you are right, Ukraine is larger, It is difficult to classify Russia and Turkey as most of these countries are actually in Asia. For Turkey, only a tiny part West of Marmara is in Europe, and for Russia, anything East of Ural mountains which is at least two third is also in Asia.Blastwizard (talk) 20:25, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

So is this mistake going to be corrected? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Lanqner (talk • contribs) 12:05, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

For Turkey it is certainly the case, East Thrace is rather small. The Russian Federation however is not. Its larger part is on the Asian continent but its European part (encompassing most of the Russia that people know including Moscow) is still several times larger than Ukraine. Otherwise it can be argued that Turkey and Russia are not Asian countries either because they extend to Europe. Evlekis (talk) 18:53, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

Map

Since a few days, a very persistent user is repeatedly changing the maps of many European countries without caring to discuss these changes. The situation before these changes was this: Every country in the EU has an identical map, in which the EU is shown in light green and the country itself in dark green. To the best of my of knowledge, there has been no discussion on changing these 27 maps. Given that, I fail to see why some users now rush in to support these unsupported changes. I would be interested in hearing these users argue for why we should have a completely different kind of map for France than for the other 26 EU countries. In the meantime, I'm restoring the map that it is line with all the other maps.JdeJ (talk) 20:09, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Well, unsupported changes from you??, if you read all previous discussions about all these europeans maps in all discussion pages, apparently all users discussed to support this style of map, but no matter what, all europeans maps were changed by a user called Damian Radu without reason written in resume, now they must be reverted because almost all previous consensus weren't respected.--TownDown ^{How's it going?} 22:55, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Energy independence.

{{editprotected}} In the "Economy" section of this article, it says in the part about energy that "France is also the most energy independent Western country due to heavy investment in nuclear power (Nuclear power in France)". This strikes me as a bit odd, as you also have Switzerland which gets 95% of its power from co2 free sources, in form of nuclear power and water power. And as a even more energy independent country you have Norway, which does not rely on imported uranium, but is a large net exporter of oil. The same goes for Canada. I think it would be more precise to say that "France is one of the least CO2 emitting western counties(...)". TheFreeloader (talk) 19:17, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps we could get some discussion on this. Please replace the request if consensus supports this change. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 09:10, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

Flags of regions

Flags for most regions are wrong, e.g. for region Aquitaine this page gives File:Aquitaine_flag.svg but the correct one is File:Bandera_Regió_Aquitània.png as described on the page Aquitaine. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.50.110.6 (talk) 15:19, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

Foreign relations

In the section named "Foreign relations", it is writed that France leaved the joint military command of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation. It could interesting to write that this decision of president Charles de Gaulle has been cancelled by president Nicolas Sarkozy in 2009.--Pierrick42 (talk) 10:20, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

Size ranking in Europe

The paragraph addressing France's land mass states that it is second in Europe after Ukraine (as in its principle shape which is the France that everybody knows, north of Spain, south-west of Germany etc). It also states that France is largest if including its "extra-European territories". This is clearly incorrect however you look at it: the largest land mass in Europe to include non-European territory is the Russian Federation (regardless of whether that external territory is far greater). Europe is an economical and non-geographical continent, and Russia belongs only to European institutions such as UEFA and the Eurovision (that is not to say that Israel is European). But you'll find that this is more down to Russia's European lands have a higher population than the rest of Russia, and the dominant Slavic nations (mainly ethnic Russians themselves) mostly living in and originating from west of the Urals. In addition, Turkey and Kazakhstan are both larger in land mass than Ukraine and both extend onto European terrain. Then you have Denmark which has sovereignty over the whole of Greenland. Greenland's ice sheet alone is over three times larger than the French territory of Europe despite the island being populated by fewer than 60,000. Whilst the addition of extra-European lands may allow France to overtake Ukraine (which is not very much bigger than France), those territories will certainly not catch Denmark. So here are some notes for consideration with France and its land mass:

• 1 – The sovereign state which occupies more of the European territory than any other is the Russian Federation. This is followed by the Ukraine, then France. However, Russian lands outside of Europe occupy more land than European Russia.
• 2 – France has extra-European territories which give the French government sovereignty over a greater land mas than Ukraine. However, Denmark, Kazakhstan and Turkey all have sovereignty over lands which are larger than Ukraine and France although their European sectors are all smaller than France.
• 3 – France, Russia, Denmark, Turkey and Kazakhstan are all countries with lands outside of Europe but only France has its larger part in Europe; and only Russia joins it in having its main part (administrative, commercial and populous) in Europe.

My list is not conclusive because I am not an expert on world affairs. Greenland is obvious because you cannot examine the globe and not see it! I suggest modifying the sentence to be more accuracte regarding France's ranking. My area of interest on WP is the Balkans, so I don't really wish to make changes to this article without a concensus; as such I will not take the liberty of changing any part of it unless nobody responds to this note. Evlekis (talk) 07:28, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

I think france should ranked 3rd in Europe after Russia and Ukraine. Since we refer to Europe we should limit ourselves to the area each country has within Europe, excluding all areas outside Europe. --Lanqner (talk) 06:33, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

FRENCH is not the official language

France has no official language, see e.g. the CIA factbook or Ethnologue: https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/fields/2098.html http://www.ethnologue.com/show_country.asp?name=FR Either delete it on the infobox or delete 'official' and replace it for 'de facto' or just 'language'. Thanks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.173.113.122 (talk) 22:51, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

I cannot see anything in the references you gave that point to the language not been official/de facto.

Also I am not sure those links are actually reliable references, the CIA is a US agency and I don't know much about ethnologue.com. I guess we would need to check the texts of the French constitution to see if it actually mentions French as an official language or not. FFMG (talk) 03:56, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Yes it is, French is the official language of the French Republic, it is enshrined in the second article of its Constitution. Blastwizard (talk) 14:36, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

Who are you replying to? FFMG (talk) 14:39, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

After a very quick look at the constitution article 2, (as mentioned by Blastwizard), French is the official language [5], (Art. 2: La langue de la République est le français). FFMG (talk) 06:53, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Ethnologue is not a reference on French law; yet it does cite French as France's official language. The Constitution of France certainly is a reference on what is official or not. David.Monniaux (talk) 21:42, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

The only way a country can not have an official language is if the country does not have a codified constitution, or if the constitution does not address the language issue (highly unlikely). France is renouned for its codified constitutions, the governance of each new republic being based precisely on the provisions of the writings. Examples of countries which have no codified constitution and thus no official language include the United Kingdom and Sweden. Evlekis (talk) 06:46, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

I have to agree, because in some parts of east France, they speak German and in the south of France, bordered with Spain, they speak Spanish. (TheGreenwalker (talk) 22:31, 18 September 2009 (UTC))

Well... I'm french (and former student in History and Geography). In the south-west of my country (the side bordered by Spain), people speak french as first language. Basque, catalan and occitan are spoken too as "regional languages" but spanish... No. Look at french wikipedia : "http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Langues_r%C3%A9gionales_ou_minoritaires_de_France". —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.28.102.11 (talk) 21:38, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

And me I live in East France (in alsace) and oui nous parlons français! yes we speak french no german, the dialect is alsacian who is different from german language, but a few people speak it only old people generally and some young who have still interest in " regional language" but it's rare. so sorry but Thegreenwalker is a liar or never go to France and love to say stupid stuff like this.Fol2choco (talk) 21:57, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

Ne vous inquiétez pas l'Alsacien, plusieurs d'entre nous sur ce site remettons les pendules à l'heure, comme vous pouvez le lire à la section ci-dessous. Cordialement, Frania de Lutèce. Frania W. (talk) 23:07, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

But French IS the official language of France!

French has been the official language of France for almost six centuries, since king François Ier signed the Ordonnance de Villers-Cotterêts in August 1539.

http://www.assemblee-nationale.fr/histoire/villers-cotterets.asp

The French people still spoke in their various dialects or patois, but all official documents, which had previously been written in Latin, had to be written in French from then on.

In addition, the French Constitution Article 2 states:

La langue de la République est le français

Anymore doubt as to whether French is the official language of France or not? Frania W. (talk) 19:10, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

I don't think there was any doubt, I already gave a link to the contitutuion should anybody want to read it. FFMG (talk) 20:35, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

I simply wanted to underline the fact that French has been the official language of France for six centuries minus 20 years... and the country's republican constitution confirms it. Frania W. (talk) 21:42, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

I am french and I can say than the official language of France IS The french everyhere the territory of France but there are, in certain regions, some informal dialects --ZOTHOP (talk) 18:17, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

commas or dots for decimals?

Most of this page is using the US standard ".", but the Labour market section has "," as in 39,9%. I guess this is a cut-n-paste issue. Should this page be made consistent? And which way would be the right way, the US style "." or the French style ","? 128.221.197.55 (talk) 18:59, 18 August 2009 (UTC) doug

Dots, as this is the English language Wikipedia. Indeed, it was probably the result of copy/paste from the French language Wikipedia. David.Monniaux (talk) 06:34, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Coordinate error

The coordinates need the following fixes:

• Write here

121.54.2.115 (talk) 09:34, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

They speak French in Canada —Preceding unsigned comment added by Wolfet (talk • contribs) 22:59, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

Evangelical Christians "stats"

Hello, I don't think that the so-called stats about the french population are relevant nor factual, I won't consider an US Evangelical Christian website aggregating others Evangelical Christian websites like anything close to a serious source... Please advise. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.238.37.74 (talk) 11:59, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Agreeing with above comment: there are official French & EU statistics to be used as sources.  :Frania W. (talk) 14:28, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

ETHNIC GROUPS STATS BY EVANGELISTS

How come do you use ethnic group statistics from an non-neutral christian evangelist group which aim is to christianize the entire world ? (The "Joshua Project") Ethnic statistics are not used in France. How come there is NO ethnic statistics on the USA Wikipedia page used from The Joshua Project ? Are you doubtful of your sources for the USA and not for other countries ? Who is white ? Asian ? Eurasian ? mixed raced ? How do you define that exactly ? Ethnic groups statistics are racist, biased, dangerous and should be removed. JV —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.80.241.98 (talk) 02:01, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

moving this new section at bottom of discussion page. Frania W. (talk) 03:26, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

France

tHE CAPITOL IS Paris —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.196.73.220 (talk) 22:17, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

See Also

I'm kind of curious : why is the only link in that section to Language Imperialism ? Is this really so notable that it is the only article we encourage people to look at ? Especially as that article deals mostly with English... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 159.208.34.100 (talk) 16:42, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

Foreign Relations

The phrase "but consequently rivaling the UK and limiting the influence of newly inducted East European nations." is an absolutely subjective judgement. Actually, France is happy to boost a few Eastern European countries because they are either francophone (Romania) or counter-balance the english-language domination because their citizens speak very little english (Hungary). Actually, "rivaling the UK" is not a policy of France at all since the 19th century, especially given that following the credit crunch, recent France's growth exceeds UK's growth, that the British pound has lost over 20% of its value and that the financial policy of the UK has been completely discredited along with its stance in favour of military intervention in Iraq, based on British Intelligence that was grounded on hearsay about Weapons of Mass Destruction by an iraqi taxi-driver. Sacredceltic (talk) 20:35, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

FRENCH QUALITY OF LIFE INDEX

NOTE: The discussion in this section has been moved to Talk:France#Recent edits below. New topics should always be added to the BOTTOM of this page. Thank you very much!
 —  Paine (Ellsworth's Climax)  19:51, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

La Marseillaise in English

La Marseillaise in English is The Marseillaise —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.97.61.31 (talk) 08:24, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

FRENCH ECONOMY

France is a rich europian country .I LOOKED AT THE ECONOMY SECTION OF FRANCE AND SAW THAT CHANGES HAVE NOT BEEN MADE YET. GDP NOMINAL IS FROM 2006 AND WE ARE NOW IN 2008, IT SHOULD BE 2.8 TRILLION USD (not 2,100 Trillion) AND 41,000 USD PER CAPITA. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Elvisbajro (talk • contribs) 16:01, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

France is no longer the sixth largest economy but [the eighth] as of 2007 http://www.umsl.edu/services/govdocs/wofact2004/rankorder/2001rank.html Per PPP, France is just [33rd.] https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2004rank.html —Preceding unsigned comment added by BreizhAtav (talk • contribs) 23:21, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

Right, France has just the EIGHT GDP at PPP (Purchasing Power Parity) and the SIX at nominal prices. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.53.110.3 (talk) 21:07, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

and there empire was not one of the largest it was the 7th largest jeez —Preceding unsigned comment added by Owehweghksdqgkedg (talk • contribs) 15:35, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Did you understand the sentence? one of the largest didn't mean the largest. So the 7th largest empire could be defined as one of the largest.

The coin depicted as a Euro was minted in 1999, therefore not a Euro

Yes, it is. Please read Wikipedia article : 1 euro coins

"The coins have been used from 2002, though some are dated 1999 which is the year the euro was created as a currency, but not put into general circulation."

--67.242.8.195 (talk) 03:06, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

number of "Blacks" in France

France doesn't have a definition for what is a "black" or what is a "white" person or any other "colour" for that purpose, so assessing the number of "blacks" in France is absolutely meaningless. Where does this illegal definition come from ? On what data is it based ? How has the data been collected ? If it is not either administratively nor scientifically grounded, the number of "black people in France" should be removed straightaway because it doesn't mean a thing. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sacredceltic (talk • contribs) 20:17, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

You are right insofar as the number of Black people is extremly hard to assess. However, it is 100% sure that France is the European country with the largest number of Black people on his territory. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Yakuzanodon (talk • contribs) 16:06, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

Byte/octet

The article currently says, "In computing, a bit is called a bit yet a byte is called an octet." Should this be on the French language page instead? Anyway, I have marked this as [citation needed] because in English, byte and octet have different definitions (as you can see at their respective articles). Although a layman, to me it seems more likely that the French are just more precise on this matter, in which case the following wording might be better "In computing, quantities of digital data are normally expressed in terms of octets rather than [byte]s." Open4D (talk) 12:55, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

For the needed source, I can provide this one, "Unité d'information composée de huit bits" (Unit of information made with height bits), according to the 9th Dictionnaire de l'Académie française (See french definition on CNRTL). Octet is the common used word in everyday life (a 180 gigaoctets hard drive for example, a 1.44 megaoctet floppy or a 18 mebioctet file) whereas byte is only used in very specific cases, where 1 byte is not equal to 8 bits. Pyccknn (talk) 13:02, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Pronunciation of 'France'

The sound file and suggested pronunciation in the English language represents only one possible pronunciation. It is possibly a North American rendering. Typically in many countries it is pronounced with a longer A sound (sorry I'm not a linguist). I suggest that both pronunciations be given or the NA rendering be removed. Ozdaren (talk) 11:03, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Support. In writing, we even give the alternative pronunciation. If you can add the corresponding sound file, I think nobody would oppose its addition. Just go ahead. Tomeasy _{T C} 12:22, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

I think a single sound file with the two main pronunciations separated with 'or' would be appropriate. Hayden120 (talk) 12:30, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

OK I'll get on to it (soon). Ozdaren (talk) 13:28, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

The IPA for both British and American pronunciations is wrong. It should include a /t/ before the /s/. Listen to the soundclip and you'll hear it. Just say it (in English) and you'll hear it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.189.103.145 (talk) 14:40, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

Blattant right-wing POV

Found in labor market: "These low employment rates are explained by the high minimum wages which prevent low productivity workers – such as young people – from easily entering the labour market,ineffective university curricula that fail to prepare students adequately for the labour market,[55] and, concerning the older workers, restrictive legislation on work and incentives for premature retirement"

Mmmmm...REALLY?...I didn't know Friedman was writing on wikipedia! And i never imagined the OECD did encyclopedias too! So i guess anybody has the right to put a radical left-wing analysis after this, to counter-balance? OH NO! It's locked! What a surprise! "High minimum wages are a problem"...and maybe, minimum dignity is another too? Not enough slaves in France, i guess? Minimum means guaranteed, and what is not guaranteed by law is smoke and tales for kids, especially when dealing with businessmen. Later : "Universities are failing at preparing us"...apart from the ill-chosen "failing", THAT'S RIGHT LUV! Because contrarily to most develloped countries, France has (some) real universities, in which knowledge is not (yet?) linked to rentability. Their goal is emancipation, which is precisely the opposite of the nice-packaged preparation to slavery you received...or not, i guess it's not free in your country? If you want to learn a job, you can learn it everywhere, but if you wanna enlarge your head, you should try at the university, cause there's few other places...really. "Restrictive legislation on work"? My ancestors, and millions of others in hundreds of countries, spilt their blood, facing cavalry charges and various other niceties to gain these laws, which enabled themselves to, slowly, improve their everyday life and dream of something better for their own childrens. Now these laws are being destroyed everywhere on purely monetarist ideas, supported by powerful lobbies, creating huge problems such as the subprime crisis and poor paid workers in develloped countries (but not only, sadly...). "Incentives for premature retirement". Yeah, we want fresh blood and we find it shameful to kill grandpas at work, after 40 years of sweating, don't you? Big corporations, or their official (or not) representatives want french people to burn their labor laws, through Wikipedia, they're not even TRYING to disguise it correctly, and this is, of course, on the frontpage about our country. I thought we worked to live and not lived to work, but i guess i was wrong. See : i even thought there was some serious on Wikipedia, at least on major countries' frontpages! How ridiculous! My comment is, obviously, one-sided, and i'm certainly not considering myself competent to edit this article, but i can tell you the person(s) who did this should never write in an encyclopedia again, and doesn't even has the basic courage to recognize his one-sidedness (maybe because it was done purposely...) Before leaving you to fix (or not, just look at the meaningless article on OECD...) this stinking ideologic propaganda, two intranslatable french words that explains everything : "Acquis sociaux". Goodbye. 90.52.6.161 (talk) 00:19, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

EDIT: After verification, all the sources for this statement are linked to right-wing OECD, apart from one which refers to right-wing economists, of which one works for a brussel think-tank, which is, as you may have guessed, not committed to humanist ideals. Or maybe, some of you consider the OECD as a "neutral" source? In this case, some of you should consider opening some serious books before writing.

"Liberal economists have stressed repeatedly over the years that the main issue of the French economy is an issue of structural reforms, in order to increase the size of the working population in the overall population, reduce the taxes' level and the administrative burden. Keynesian economists have different answers to the unemployment issue, and their theories led to the 35-hour workweek law in the early 2000s, which turned out to be failure in reducing unemployment." are the sentence that actually made me cringe. This is non-neutral / encyclopecic language at its best (see wikipedia article on propaganda this is a variation of the black and white fallacy) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.57.103.19 (talk) 10:42, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Regional languages

A user keeps removing the regional languages from the infobox claiming that they are not officially recognized. Well this is incorrect - since a 2008 ammendment to the French Constitution, France officially recognizes all its regional languages. The languages are not explicitely named in the constitution but they are listed in other official documents such as these: [6], [7] and [8]. See also this news report. Laurent (talk) 18:37, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

I hate to see an edit war on whether or not to list the regional languages of France in the infobox: for his side of the argument, WikiLaurent is bringing official "national" (not "nationalistic/regional") texts. Le Figaro article on "les langues régionales inscrites dans la constitution" cannot be ignored. So, why not leave the list in the infobox until we have a better understanding of the matter?

Cordialement, Frania W. (talk) 19:13, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, but they only voted for an amendment of a proposed law, ("L'Assemblée nationale a en effet adopté jeudi, à la quasi-unanimité, un amendement surprise au projet de loi sur la réforme des institutions"), as far as I can tell that law was never actually passed. FFMG (talk) 19:23, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict) All those report are saying that there are other languages in parts of France. They are not official or recognized by the constitution.

Listing it as you have done in the info box wrongly gives the impression to the reader that those are somewhat recognized languages, they are not.

Using other county articles as an example,

• Russia only list Russian as a language and only note that 27 other languages are 'co-official'.
• The United States does not list any languages, (not English, Spanish, French or otherwise).
• Belgium does not mention Flemish or Wallon as languages.
• Other countries, (Spain for example), do have other languages listed because they are officially recognised in certain areas of that country.
• Switzerland does not mention Franco-Provençal or Alemannic dialects although those are spoken is some parts.

In the case of France this is just not the case, Creole is not an official language of Reunion Island, Corsican is not the official language of Corsica.

So I thing that listing them in the info box is simply misleading and incorrect. FFMG (talk) 19:20, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

From what I understand the Senate blocked the amendment, but it has later been reestablished by the National Assembly. Today it is definitely in the constitution. See this Le Monde article which states that "L'Assemblée nationale a aussi rétabli la reconnaissance des langues régionales dans la Constitution, après sa suppression par le Sénat." Laurent (talk) 20:15, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, but this is not the case, the constitution is very clear on the matter,

• Article 2 "La langue de la République est le français.", "the language of the republic is french" and
• Article 75-1 "Les langues régionales appartiennent au patrimoine de la France.". "Reginal languages belong to the patrimony of France", (note that no languages are listed).

Nowhere does it list any of the languages you added to the info box. Furthermore, one of the report you gave mentions 75 regional languages, not the handful you selected. FFMG (talk) 20:22, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

To FFMG: French people in France know what the regional languages are, the "regions" being the former "provinces" of France. It would also be good for this discussion to give the date of the references being brought. If I remember correctly, it was in 1999 that France signed but did not ratify the regional language charter - the subject has not been lying dormant since, and that was almost eleven years ago. Frania W. (talk) 20:50, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

I am not sure what you are trying to say, where did I say French people didn't know what their regional languages are? where did I say I didn't know what a regional language was? I don't doubt for a second that they know.

All I am saying is that the list given by Laurent is not official and seems to be incomplete, (by his own references). FFMG (talk) 04:34, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

To FFMG: Sorry if you misunderstood my "French people in France know what the regional languages are", as I was not implying that you did not know. What I meant was that in the French constitution, it is not necessary to list every regional language because the French know what they are Besides, as Xavier pointed out (below), "you should not expect there will ever be a list of "official" regional languages in it. One reason is that would be too discriminating against the others minor regional languages that would not be listed."

Frania W. (talk) 05:29, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

To Frania:, (still not sure about that bolding). Of course it is necessary to list languages. As I said in my previous reply, this is why just about every country in the world lists their official language, France does it in the second article. Regional languages are the same, if it is official it is listed in the constitution, (in the case of France and many others).

Are you suggesting that it should not list it because French people know that they speak French.

Discrimination has nothing to do with it, as I said, (three times already), certain countries, (like Spain), have official regional languages, there is no discrimination about that. FFMG (talk) 06:34, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

P.S. The "reconnaissance of the regional languages" does not take anything away from French being the "official language of France", it simply officially recognizes the fact that the regional languages exist and that they are a part of France's patrimony.

As the infobox stands right now, the s at official languages should be removed: French being the one & only official language; the others being "regional languages".

Frania W. (talk) 21:04, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

Exactly, regional languages are all recognised but are not official. So only the official one should be listed. FFMG (talk) 04:34, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

FFMG, the infobox field's comment just says "officially recognized languages". Does it mean it must be mentioned in the constitution? I doubt it, and you should not expect there will ever be a list of "official" regional languages in it. One reason is that would be too discriminating against the others minor regional languages that would not be listed. Another reason is that as soon as a "regional language" becomes an official language, it can not be so in a delimited perimeter (e.g. Corsican in Corsica): for equality sake, it will be an official language in the whole country. For these reasons, there will never be any such thing as an "official regional language" in France. This is clearly stated by the government definition of regional language, which is: a language

• traditionally spoken by the inhabitants of a territory
• different from the official language

Now back to the field's comment, which says "recognized". Article 75-1, which was added to the constitution in 2008, is a clear recognition of regional languages. And there have been factual recognitions from the French government for some time. For example, some teachers of the Diwan schools (where a substancial part of the lessons are in Breton language) are appointed by the Minister of National Education. — Xavier, 23:22, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

Of course I expect it to be listed, that what just about every country in the world does, South Africa list 11 languages, Switzerland list 4. Nothing strange about that.

And, as I said in my original reply, some countries do recognize official languages only in certain regions, (Spain for example). France does not do that. It recognizes all regional languages, not just the ones listed by Laurent.

In other words, the list added by Laurent is incomplete, unofficial and should be removed otherwise we need to list _all_ regional languages, not just a selected handful.

Either way I don't think the list will ever be complete, (as there is no official list). FFMG (talk) 04:34, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

To FFMG: The list given by Laurent may be incomplete, but what is in it is official, simply not listed in the constitution for reasons stated earlier by Xavier. Frania W. (talk) 05:52, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

To Frania:

1. How is it official?
2. Are you happy for this article to have an incomplete list?
3. Will you be updating the regional list of languages to most, (all?), countries listed on wikipedia?
   1. If not, why only list the regional languages of France?
4. Why are you bolding who you are replying to?, (or is it just me?) FFMG (talk) 06:34, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

FFMG, I don't why you would expect the regional languages to be offical. I'm sure that doesn't even make sense because if a language is offical then it's no longer regional. Irish was a regional language then it became official, but it has never been both at the same time. That's why there are two fields in the infobox - one for the official ones, usually listed in the constitution, and one for the regional ones which are normally not listed but sometime (as in the case of France or Spain) recognized. The list is as complete as it can be - it comes from the Minister of Education website and these are the languages that are commonly known as "regional" in France. 11 of them are officially taught by the Education Nationale. As for the other country articles, well Spain and Republic of China do list their regional languages and maybe there are more. But in any case, each country is unique and we shouldn't be comparing what's being done in other articles. WP:OTHERSTUFFEXIST is rarely a good argument anyway. Laurent (talk) 09:33, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

I already responded to your original message, (twice), but you chose to ignore all the points I raised, so what would be the point of responding to a new one?

And, WP:OTHERSTUFFEXIST does not really apply, I was simply pointing out that no other country articles list their regional languages, but as you chose to ignore that point as well.

In the link you gave there are 75 regional languages, why are you not listing all of them? FFMG (talk) 10:52, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

To FFMG: Please do not be offended at my bolding your name! We are having a long discussion with some persons adding comments inside comments, and I figure that my own reply catches the eye of the person whom I am addressing if I "bold" the name. If you go through my comments on talk pages, you will see that I often "bold" or "italicise" the name of my interlocutor, it is only a way of making it obvious that this is the person I am talking to. This has to be taken as my personal way of writing, just as I often close with "cordialement !" or "aurevoir !". And as this is the second time you seem to misunderstand what I write, or the way I write, maybe the problem lies with my English, so I will ask (1) for your forgiveness, and (2) for your patience until I have mastered your language as well as you have mine.

Now on the subject at hand: Please note that my first comment opened with "I hate to see an edit war on whether or not to list the regional languages of France in the infobox..." and this is what I meant & hope. Because I am still trying to figure out whether the regional languages belong in the infobox or not, I never said that they should be there. What I am saying, and this in agreement with Laurent & Xavier, is that the regional languages (of France, DOM TOM etc.) are now officially recognised by a sentence included in the French constitution, while there is no list given of them, fact explained very well by Xavier. Moreover, the French do know what these regional languages are, so there is not need to include a list of them in their constitution. Take as an example: "All citizens are born equal", after this, do you need to give a list of the "citizens" ?

Cordialement à vous ! Frania W. (talk) 16:52, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

FFMG, sorry I honestly can't find the source where they talk about 75 regional languages, but that can't be right anyway. Perhaps there are 75 different languages being spoken in France but not all of them are considered regional languages. This source is good because it comes from the government and the languages are explicitely called "regional languages". Also I didn't ignore your point regarding the other country articles - I mentioned Spain and Republic of China above. Both of these infoboxes include the regional languages. Laurent (talk) 22:13, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

It is in the original link given at the beginning of this discussion [9]. FFMG (talk) 14:07, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

A map of France with regional languages: [10]

Frania W. (talk) 22:33, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

The issue is quite simple really. There are two points to consider:

• None of these regional languages enjoy any sort of official recognition by the French state, despite the fact that an amendment was added in the Constitution stating that the regional languages (unspecified) belong to the heritage of France. You cannot use Breton or Alsatian with any judicial court. You cannot use it with the administration. You cannot speak Breton or Alsatian at the National Assembly (if you do, your speech won't be recorded in the official transcripts of the National Assembly... a few years ago the deputy Jean Lassale said something in Occitan in the middle of a debate, his speech was removed from the official transcripts of the National Assembly, where only French can legally be used). So putting these languages in the infobox is misleading: it will lead people to believe they have some official status in France, which is not the case.
• If these languages are in the infobox just to show what languages are (or were) spoken on the territory of the French Republic, without implying that they are official, then the problem is not only that it's something which is not done in the other country infoboxes (see for example Italy and Greece which do not list all the local languages spoken in these two countries), but it's also pure and simple Original research, because it is basically WikiLaurent who decided which language was included and which wasn't. Adding this "regional languages" category in the infobox is simply calling for a free-for-all, where every person with an agenda will add his/her pet language. For example, why was Gascon not included? Many people believe Gascon is a language distinct from Occitan. Why was Shimaore included but not Kibushi? Why was Tahitian included but not Marquesan? And why was the so-called "Lorrain language" listed separately from the other Oïl languages? Original research at its worst!

So in order not to mislead people, and also to prevent a free-for-all, I propose to remove this "regional languages" section from the infobox, if only because it is original research. Der Statistiker (talk) 01:28, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

Der Statistiker, I'd be interested to know what's your definition of original research. Do you realize that the list comes verbatim from the Minister of Culture website? I didn't decide which languages go in; in fact I would have put less languages than they did, but since I didn't want to do any original research, I simply copied the list.

the problem is not only that it's something which is not done in the other country infoboxes - again, it's done in Spain and Republic of China among others. The Spanish constitution is very similar to the French one in its recognition of its regional languages. They don't list them either (which constitution does?) but recognize them all, which is probably why they are listed in the infobox.

Finally, I don't agree with your criteria for the inclusion of a regional language. Who said that the language has to be used in a court or by the administration for it to appear in the infobox? The only two criteria, per the infobox label ("Recognized regional languages"), are: 1) the languages must be regional 2) they must be recognized. It's not mentioned anywhere that they must have more recognition than that, or have any official status comparable to the French language. If the problem is that the list is not accurate, then we can improve it. There are many sources, including governmental ones, that list the languages of France. For instance, the National Education teaches 11 of these languages as can be seen here. So I still think the languages should stay although I'm fine with amending the list to make it more accurate. Laurent (talk) 02:17, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

What do you mean, "recognise them all"? Offering optional courses in schools or dubbing street names for touristic amusement is one thing, recognising them is quite another (besides, Japanese is taught at pretty much the same level and is not "recognised" for that). It's not like official paperwork is even done in anything but French. Rama (talk) 11:49, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

Rama, the recognition is made in the French constitution which states that "regional languages are part of France’s heritage." And again, there's no requirement for regional languages to be used in official documents for them to be considered recognized (in fact, if they were used in official documents, they would not be considered regional but official languages, like Irish in the Republic of Ireland for example). Finally, Japanese is considered a foreign language by the National Education; while Alsatian, Breton and so on are considered Regional languages - that's the distinction (as can be seen in this document). Laurent (talk) 12:06, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

WikiLaurent, there is no "list from the ministry of culture". The ministry of culture never defined the regional languages of France. What happened is the ministry of culture asked a private researcher, Bernard Cerquiglini, to survey the regional languages of France and to submit a report to the ministry. Mr Cerquiglini submitted a report in 1999 in which he 75 identified regional languages. A second report was submitted in 2008 identifying 79 regional languages. And that's it! The government has never officially approved those lists made by a private researcher. It has never given them any legal recognition. There is no loi, no décret, no arrêté passed by the Parliament or issued by the French government which lists the regional languages or certify Mr. Cerquiglini's lists as official. The report of Mr. Cerquiglini was published on the ministry's website, but that's about it. There are many reports that are published on ministry's websites. That doesn't make them official law. Besides you chose to copy your list of regional languages from the 1999 list (with many omissions), but you chose to ignore the enlarged list of 2008. Like I said, original research at its worst. And a call for a free-for-all. Der Statistiker (talk) 14:36, 29 January 2010 (UTC)
PS: Here are the 79 regional languages of France identified in the two reports that I mentioned: ajië, alpin-dauphinois, dialecte allemand d'Alsace et de Moselle, aluku, arabe dialectal, arawak proprement dit (ou lokono), arhâ, arhö, arménien occidental, auvergnat-limousin, basque, berbère, bourguignon-morvandiau, breton, caac, catalan, cèmuhî, corse, créole guadeloupéen, créole guyanais, créole martiniquais, créole réunionnais, drehu, drubéa, émerillon, fagauvea, flamand occidental, franc-comtois, francoprovençal, futunien, fwâi, galibi (ou kalina), gallo, gascon, hmong, iaai, jawe, kumak, languedocien, lorrain, langue mangarévienne, marquisien, njuka, neku, nemi, nengone, normand, numèè, nyelâyu, ôrôwe, paicî, palikur, paramaca, picard, pije, poitevin-saintongeais, provençal, pwaamei, pwapwâ, langue de Ra'ivavae, langue de Rapa, romani chib, langue de Ruturu, saramaca, shibushi, shimaoré, sîchë, tahitien, tîrî, langue des Tuamotu, dialectes de la région de Voh-Koné, walissien, wallon, wayampi, wayana, xârâcùù, xârâgùrè, yiddish, yuaga. Der Statistiker (talk) 14:36, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

I think some common sense is needed here otherwise we'll indeed end up including just about any language that has ever been spoken in France. The bottom line is that there are sources which clearly identify some languages as regional. Are you saying that, for instance, Breton is NOT a regional language? Also are you saying that the article 75-1 of the constitution does NOT imply recognition of the regional languages? Le Monde, a national, reliable, neutral newspaper, wrote that it does imply recognition, and so did the Figaro (and, of course, plenty of regional newspapers). If you think that the French regional languages are NOT recognized by the constitution, or that the current listed languages are not regional, could you perhaps bring a source explicitely saying so?

That being said, I agree that it's not straightforwards to build a list of regional languages since there's no clear cut rule as to what a regional language is. However, note that that the same can be said of some official languages - for instance, English is not named in the US constitution yet it is in the infobox. Laurent (talk) 15:42, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

That's not the case, the United States articles clearly states "Official languages, None at federal level", (and then lists English as de facto).

We either list everything or nothing, we cannot pick and choose what we feel is the 'better' reference. FFMG (talk) 15:54, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

A few days ago, I wrote "I am still trying to figure out whether the regional languages belong in the infobox or not". After a few days of réflexion, I have come to the following conclusion: Even if officially recognised and given their lettres de noblesse in the French Constitution, regional languages are not the official language(s) of France, French still is, which is what must be given in the infobox - alone.

But in order that we also "officially recognise" the French patrimony these languages represent, we could/should have a section "Recognised regional languages of France" where they would be listed, and link that section to the already existing wiki article Languages of France. --Frania W. (talk) 16:46, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

I still think we should have "something" in the regional language field - if not the actual list at least some note to explain why they are missing. Since our main point of disagreement is that there's no official list, I suggest setting the field to "No official list" with a note/link the new section, which will contain more details. In the new section, on top of the list, we could perhaps mention the article 75-1, the fact that France didn't ratify the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages and other details. What do you think? Laurent (talk) 17:32, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

I think that with this new proposal by Laurent', we may be getting somewhere. The new section on the regional languages would permit us to develop what/which are the regional languages & their new status in the French Constitution with the mention of the European charter etc. & the reason why France did not sign it. None of this would be off subject since the article is on France. --Frania W. (talk) 18:27, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

To Rama: dubbing street names for touristic amusement ? What's wrong with the attachment to one's roots ? Did you ever go to Bretagne or deep into Provence long before they became touristy destinations ? --Frania W. (talk) 18:27, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

A more complete list

This is the more complete list of regional languages from the C.N.R.S [11]:

basque, breton, catalan, corse, flamand occidental, francoprovençal, occitan, gascon, languedocien, provençal, auvergnat-limousin, alpin-dauphinois, franc-comtois, wallon, picard, normand, gallo, poitevin-saintongeais, bourguignon-morvandiau, lorrain, berbère, arabe dialectal, yiddish, romani chib, arménien occidental, martiniquais, guadeloupéen, guyanais, réunionnais, saramaca, aluku, njuka, paramaca, galibi(or kalina), wayana, palikur, arawak, lokono, wayampi, émerillon, hmongnyelâyu, kumak, caac, yuaga, jawe, nemi, fwâi, pije, pwaamei, pwapwâ, cèmuhî, paicî, ajië, arhâ, arhö, ôrôwe, neku, sîchë, tîrî, xârâcùù, xârâgùrè, drubéa, numèè, nengone, drehu, iaai, fagauvea, tahitien, marquisien, langue Tuamotu, langue mangarévienne, langue de Ruturu, langue de Ra'ivavae, langue de Rapa, walissien, futunien, shimaoré, shibushi.

Shall I update the article accordingly?FFMG (talk) 14:20, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

No because it comes from a list titled "Languages spoken by French nationals", which is vague (it could even include English, Spanish, etc.). The source currently being used, on the other hand, unambiguously identifies the languages as regional languages. The National Education source also clearly calls them "regional languages". Laurent (talk) 14:42, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

I am getting confused now, what 'official' document do you propose be used? And why do you think the language above are not regional languages?

The document [12] by the C.N.R.S is just as official and the heading before all the languages clearly states:

"Le patrimoine linguistique de la France", (The linguistic patrimony of france), an, according to the constitution, (Article 75-1), "Les langues régionales appartiennent au patrimoine de la France.". "Reginal languages belong to the patrimony of France", so all 75, (or 79), languages should be listed.

What languages listed do you feel should be removed? And why? FFMG (talk) 15:29, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

Or maybe we should not list any of them?? FFMG (talk) 15:30, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

Back to basics

It appears to me that this discussion will be endless if we do not agree first on the terms and definitions being used and what this "regional language" field is all about.

For example, some have been using the term "official language" from the beginning of the discussion. This field has nothing to do with an official language. As stated above, by definition a regional language is not official. This field is defined as "officially recognized languages". There is a huge difference between the "official language(s)" of a country and other "officially recognized languages". I hope this is obvious for everyone. Can we all agree about this?

Now, is there an official definition of what an officially recognized regional language is? Is there a wikipedia definition? I haven't found any, so here is mine: "a regional language, as defined in international law, whose existence has gained official recognition through legal texts" (and, with due care, to other official communication -- government websites, despite their lack of legal status, are carefully checked).

It's obvious to me that, when a government denies that something exists, it doesn't mention it in its official texts: although extra-terrestrial languages may theoretically exist, you won't find any law or decree about them. Do you believe the government would write a decree about the protection of brown bears in the Pyrenees if there weren't any brown bears there? Can you find a similar decree about the protection of pandas in Corsica? No.

Therefore, if you can find any legal text naming a particular language, then the existence of this language is de jure officially recognized, be it regional, national or foreign. If it is explicitly cited as a regional language, then it belongs to this infobox field.

So, what are those officially recognized regional languages, according to this definition?

• Some French regional languages have been mentioned for a long time in legal texts pertaining to education: see the Deixonne law (1951) for example. Certain regional languages can be part of the final examination in secondary education.

“ Les langues régionales pouvant donner lieu à épreuve obligatoire sont définies par la loi n° 51-46 du 11 janvier 1951 codifiée et les décrets pris ultérieurement pour élargir son champ d'application à d'autres langues. La liste de ces langues régionales est la suivante : basque, breton, catalan, corse, créole, langues mélanésiennes, occitan-langue d'oc, tahitien. Outre les langues énumérées à l'alinéa précédent, peuvent donner lieu à une épreuve facultative : le gallo, les langues régionales d'Alsace, les langues régionales des pays mosellans. ” — Arrêté du 26 janvier 2006 modifiant l'arrêté du 15 septembre 1993

Do you really believe the National Education system would deliver a final diploma based on non-recognized matters? Try asking the government for courses and examinations on crystal gazing...

• Certain regional languages are explicitely recognized as such in their own article.

“ Le français, le tahitien, le marquisien, le paumotu et le mangarevien sont les langues de la Polynésie française. Les personnes physiques et morales de droit privé en usent librement dans leurs actes et conventions ; ceux-ci n'encourent aucune nullité au motif qu'ils ne sont pas rédigés dans la langue officielle. ” — Loi organique n°2004-192 du 27 février 2004 portant statut d'autonomie de la Polynésie française

• I agree that there is no list from the Ministry of Culture but Bernard Cerquiglini was mandated by the ministry. If the ministry had disagreed with this report, they wouldn't have published it the way they had, or they would have distanced from it explicitly.
• As a side note, contrary to what Der Statistiker says, regional languages can be used in courts, with or without a translator.

“ Le juge n’est pas tenu de recourir à un interprète lorsqu’il connaît la langue dans laquelle s’expriment les parties ” — Article 23 du Code de procédure civile

But the fact that an official language must be used in a court or in administrative correspondence has nothing to do with the recognition status of regional languages. On the same basis, the state is laic but the existence of religions (not God, just religions) is officially recognized. Those are two different things.

My opinion on this infobox field:

• list only the regional languages that are mentioned by their name in French legal texts
• if it is too long, limit the list to the most spoken languages (more than 200,000 speakers for example)
• add a link to a section where readers will find the full list of the 70+ regional languages that are cited in the above-mentioned reports

Sorry for this lengthy comment and thanks for your attention. — Xavier, 02:08, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

So what is the final consensus?

Remove this unofficial list, or list all 79 regional languages?

Personally, I think we should remove it altogether as it is border line OR and will never be truly complete. FFMG (talk) 12:51, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

Although Xavier's last comment is food for thought, I still stand by my comment of 29 January 2010 1646hrs:

A few days ago, I wrote "I am still trying to figure out whether the regional languages belong in the infobox or not". After a few days of réflexion, I have come to the following conclusion: Even if officially recognised and given their lettres de noblesse in the French Constitution, regional languages are not the official language(s) of France, French still is, which is what must be given in the infobox - alone.

But in order that we also "officially recognise" the French patrimony these languages represent, we could/should have a section "Recognised regional languages of France" where they would be listed, and link that section to the already existing wiki article Languages of France.

Recognising the existence/importance of regional languages does not make them the '"official language" of France. What the Constitution does is officially recognising them, not making them official languages of the French Republic. Until the French Constitution is officially translated into all the regional languages, French remains the official language.

Besides, whatever the conclusion/consensus we reach should not keep us from continuing the discussion & eventually "amending" the infobox. --Frania W. (talk) 15:12, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

True, but I am specifically asking what to do with the infobox itself, we cannot leave it as it is, either we list all the languages that we managed to find, (79 at the last count), or we put none.

Unless someone has a better idea I simply suggest removing them from the info box and continue this discussion here, (this is is was it was before the editing was done). FFMG (talk) 05:02, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

FFMG, if you care to read about fifteen lines up, that is exactly what I said: Even if officially recognised and given their "lettres de noblesse" in the French Constitution, regional languages are not the official language(s) of France, French still is, which is what must be given in the infobox - alone.

But, in the same move, because the discussion is worth continuing in view of Xavier's latest arguments, and in order not to have the matter left hanging, we also should:

• add a section on the Recognised regional languages of France with mention of the European charter that France did not sign & the reason why France did not sign it, and include in that section the list of the languages, with link to Languages of France;
• continue the discussion because of interesting details brought up by others, such as Laurent & Xavier, which certainly cannot be dismissed;
• finally be ready & willing to amend infobox if proven that having French language alone is not correct.

I also suggest that, out of courtesy, we wait for Laurent & Xavier' & others who are participating in the discussion to give their opinion before doing anything. The article is not going anywhere, what is in the infobox today is not spoiling the article, and the Earth will still be revolving around the Sun if infobox remains a few more days as it is today.

Bonne journée !--Frania W. (talk) 03:38, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Frania W., 15 lines on my screen is not 15 lines on your screen.

I know what you said, I am giving others yet another chance to respond, (out of courtesy). FFMG (talk) 04:58, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

D'accord. --Frania W. (talk) 05:09, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Hi all, and thank you for having the courtesy to wait. Again, there is a deep misunderstanding about the "regional languages field". It is not about official languages as stated above many times. The documentation and the source of the template make it clear. "Official languages" refers only to the field where French is mentioned alone. The whole language box is about "Official or Recognised regional languages; Ethnic groups" (see source) and recognized languages are, in my opinion, those I have mentioned above.

If you do not agree with my definition of "officially recognized regional languages", then please, instead of ignoring it, provide your definition. If an regional language has to be cited in the constitution to get the "recognized" status, then provide a reference for this as it is far from obvious to me.

Moreover, how can you not consider Taitian an official regional language when there is a law that states "Le français, le tahitien, le marquisien, le paumotu et le mangarevien sont les langues de la Polynésie française.". What else would you expect?

As for the 70+ regional languages, they were all listed when France signed the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages (see http://www.culture.gouv.fr/culture/actualites/lettre/dossiers/dossier-49.pdf). They don't need more to get an "officially recognized" status.

Finally, to the question "how many regional languages do we put in the infobox?", I have already answered above: mention only the main regional languages and put a ref to the section suggested by Frania. — Xavier, 21:35, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

PS: I have asked for a definition on the template's talk page. I suggest we wait for an answer before doing anything. — Xavier, 21:51, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

It looks like no one is responding to that thread so we will need to come to a decision here.

For the record, there is no dispute going on, we are having a discussion as to what languages, if any, we need to list, and we are trying to come to some sort of consensus.

I must say I don't agree with your statement "there is a deep misunderstanding about the "regional languages field", the template clearly says, "Officially recognized languages", so there is no confusion. No languages are recognised so none should be listed, (I cannot see where it says "or recognised languages").

I also disagree with your proposition so I guess the next step would probably be an RFC.

We cannot pick and choose what should or should not be listed, (your common sense choices might not be the same as a reader from Alsace for example). I guess this is why the template originally called for 'officially recognised' languages so there would be no doubt as to what to list.

The French constitution does not recognise any of those languages, (but it acknowledges regional languages in general), so at best we could give a link to the Languages of France article rather than only listing what we feel is a 'common sense' list. FFMG (talk) 05:57, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

Xavier makes a good point that the French government wouldn't mention these languages in legal texts if it didn't recognize them. Also we shouldn't forget about other reliable secondary sources like Le Monde [13] where they wrote that "The Nationaly Assembly has re-established the recognition of regional languages in the constitution". Considering this, I'd be inclined to go with Xavier's solution and list the languages explicitely named in legal texts (or maybe we could put the list of languages taught by the Education Nationale). We can still have a section about regional languages that would provide more details. In any case, it's clear that we disagree on what a "recognized regional language" is, and unfortunately there are no Wikipedia guidelines for that. So perhaps an RFC would indeed be the way forward. Laurent (talk) 13:16, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

Before removing anything out of the infobox, why don't we add the section about the regional languages with proper linking? Once we have the subject down with quotes from the Constitution, European Charter, newspaper articles, etc., it might be easier to decide what should be in the infobox. In other words, we should gather all the information into the new section, then go for the RFC. It is difficult for us right now to decide & it is obvious that we are equally divided into two camps, each side pleading with the "best" arguments, and I am afraid that a RFC would turn this discussion into a RFCircus. Cordialement, --Frania W. (talk) 13:40, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

Just a note to say that the {{Collapsible list}} template that I recently added to the ibox for the "Recognised regional languages" is an improvement that helps to keep iboxes from extending deeply down into their articles. It allows for as many additions as editors deem appropriate. See also India.

Also, if there is any dislike for the word "Recognised", then instead of using the "regional_languages" ibox field, use two other fields, the "languages_type" and the "languages" fields, in the following manner:

|languages_type = "[[Regional languages]]"
|languages = {{collapsible list |title={{nbsp}} |Alsatian; Basque; Breton; New Caledonian languages²; Catalan; . . .}}

This will also place the regional languages in their very own section, beneath the "Official languages" section, as shown here: Template talk:Infobox country#What languages should go in the regional languages field? -- Thank you very much, and I sincerely hope this helps!
 —  Paine (Ellsworth's Climax)  21:09, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

Please NOTE: The "Official languages" field has been modified to "Official language(s)" for articles such as France where there is only one official language. The alternative-plural style "(s)" was kept to continue to allow for those cases where there are two or more official languages. Thank you editor Frania W. (talk) for opening this issue!

 —  Paine (Ellsworth's Climax)  17:43, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

Paine, merci for your help & for the (s). --Frania W. (talk) 01:11, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

Un grand plaisir !

 —  Paine (Ellsworth's Climax)  21:45, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

{{editsemiprotected}}

Please change: France is a one of the most developped countries -> France is a one of the most developed countries

Done Thank you. — Xavier, 20:42, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

RFC: Infobox map

A request for comment related to this article has been opened here. Any thoughts are appreciated.Cptnono (talk) 03:03, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

"about six million North Africans and an estimated 2.5 million blacks"

Should we really include such precise estimations? I know they are from the cited Washington Post article, but we have no way of knowing from where the Post obtained those numbers. The North African number seems high, given that only six years before that Post article was written, in 1999, the French government estimated that there were 3.7 million people of "possible Muslim faith" (and virtually all North Africans would seem to fit under that category). I think we should probably avoid precise figures and just say something like "Several million French citizens are of North African or black ancestry. Funnyhat (talk) 21:22, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

What exactly is France?

The article seems rather confused about this. It starts out

France ... officially the French Republic ... is a member state of the Europen Union located in its Western region, with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents.

This is rather unclear in itself. Is it supposed to imply that those territories & islands are part of France? Or just that it owns them?

Then, in the section Administrative divisions, we get

France is divided into 26 ... regions ... 4 are overseas regions. The regions are further subdivided into 100 departments.

From this it would seem that the overseas departments are part of France, but the overseas collectivities aren't.

But in the subsection Overseas regions/departments, collectivities, and territories we have

Overseas collectivities and territories form part of the French Republic.

That seems to contradict the previous quotation, unless there's a difference between France & the French Republic, which would contradict the opening of the article quoted above.

Maybe the reality is just as confused as the article, terms being used inconsistently. Peter jackson (talk) 16:05, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

You seem to formulate a deeply philosophic question on the nature of a Nation-State -- the French Republic is the political regime that governs France, the territory (the 26 regions and overseas territories) are the geographic extension on which France exists, so neither are France per se. Anyway...

The actual point is that the Collectivité d'outre-mer have a variety of status. For instance, French Polynesia is called an "overseas country" and enjoy much autonomy. Rama (talk) 16:55, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

In case anyone's interested, I give here some sources using the name in 3 different senses:

1. Metropolitan France
2. the above together with the overseas departments
3. all the above together with overseas collectivities and territories

Peter jackson (talk) 16:05, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

I see this question is actually discussed at Metropolitan France, which seems a rather odd place for it. It appears from that that diferent French government departments differ between senses 2 & 3, & some used to use 1. If the government doesn't know what the country is ... Peter jackson (talk) 15:37, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Recent edits

The edits in question are from editor Thome66: See HERE. The first edit removed referenced material that was dated and replaced it with material from 2010. This is fine on the surface, however the existing reference is the source usually cited for this information, and the source cited by Thome66 may not be a reliable source. The second edit is also questionable since the link referenced to the World Health Organization lands on a page that is not available in the English language. So until better sources can be supplied, the dated information must remain in the article per WP:PRESERVE.
 —  Paine (Ellsworth's Climax)  21:12, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

I agree for the first edit as the new source doesn't seem to be reliable, or at least not as authoritative as the one previously used. I think the second edit is fine as the WHO indeed rated France first for the quality of health care at some point - we just need to find the source. Perhaps, in the meantime, we could use this source. Laurent (talk) 22:05, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

The latest WHO report I can find is 2008, and I haven't found any rankings in it yet. If the Business Week article cites France as the best, that would be okay, but the scan I gave it seems to play down France's health system rather than lift it to position one (comparing to Michael Moore's assessment). I guess it's still not reliably convincing yet.

 —  Paine (Ellsworth's Climax)  22:32, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

I haven't found the list but here is a report from the World Health Organization which states that France provides the best health care system: [14] Laurent (talk) 00:18, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

I found that WHO report in my search, too, but I didn't mention it because it is also ten years old. France was number one ten years ago, but what about now? or more recently?

 —  Paine (Ellsworth's Climax)  05:59, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

• PS. Now I'm confused: It's called "The World Health Report 2000", but at the bottom it's copyrighted "WHO 2010". Why would they call it "2000" if it's for 2010?

The natural explanation is that it took their bureaucracy 10 years to compile & publish. Peter jackson (talk) 10:36, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

I brought this down from the first topic on this Talk page:

• According to the Economist Intelligence Unit's Quality of Life Index http://www.economist.com/media/pdf/QUALITY_OF_LIFE.pdf,, France is ranked 25th for Quality of Life.

This is also the reference used in the Wikipedia Quality of Life Index article. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quality-of-life_index

Previously someone had pointed to a pseudo touristic site claiming France has the highest quality of life index rating in the world!!

I corrected that and properly referenced Economist Intelligence Unit's Quality of Life Index pdf article on the web.

(Teune (talk) 13:02, 19 February 2010 (UTC))

So maybe France isn't 1st after all.
 —  Paine (Ellsworth's Climax)  11:51, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

The Quality of Life Index and the quality of the medical establishment and services are two completely different and almost unrelated things. Rama (talk) 13:28, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Please see page 4 of http://www.economist.com/media/pdf/QUALITY_OF_LIFE.pdf, where it clearly shows France ranking 25th in Quality of Life as of the year 2005. We are to believe that it rose to number one in just five years? A better source than a tourist site is required to verify such a claim.

 —  Paine (Ellsworth's Climax)  00:46, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

• France n° 1 in health care
• France n°29 in quality of life

Does this mean that the best way to enjoy life in France is to be... sick ???

--Frania W. (talk) 01:37, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

That means that -- if verified -- France has the best doctors, best medical equipment and best health insurance coverage, on one hand; and on the other has poorer performances spread amongst the criteria for Quality of life, which are in Cost and Living, Culture and Leisure, Economy, Environment, Freedom, Health, Infrastructure, Safety and Risk and Climate. I do not understand why you insist in being unserious.

Incidentally, one of the surveys cited on Quality-of-life index lists France at the top position as to 2010. Rama (talk) 12:30, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Incidentally, and at the risk of being "unserious"... the site you direct us to ranks France first for Quality of life in 2010 "for the fifth year in a row", which has me wondering at the "seriousness" of some of these surveys & reports (hence my remark above): what extraordinary measures did France take in order to jump from 29th place to first in less than five years (we are only at the beginning of 2010). Did France jump ahead or did the twenty-eight countries formerly ahead fall back? --Frania W. (talk) 13:07, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

It is not the same survey. Where have you seen that The International Living Magazine’s quality-of-life index for 2005 listed France at the 29th position? And why do you make the assumption that if The International Living Magazine and The Economist are not in agreement, that discredits the International Living Magazine? Rama (talk) 13:54, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

First, I never made the assumption that anyone survey was being "discredited" by another, but I do have the right to question how France can go from 29th place in one 2005 survey to first place in a 2010, no matter who is doing the survey, because if the difference is so great, that means the surveys are not done on the same basis. Seriously. --Frania W. (talk) 16:34, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

If you see the two surveys as equivalent, why did you never utter the question as, alternatively, "how could France possibly have been in the 29th position when it was at the first the next 5 consecutive years"?

Again, there are two surveys, we have no indication that France was at the 29th position in the 2005 issue of the International Living Magazine if there even was one, and that sort of things can stem from slight differences in the metrics.

Seriously, go read something about statistic indexes. Rama (talk) 16:40, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

That's a very "serious" uncivil comment! How can you "seriously" compare the tourist site, International Living with The Economist?

 —  Paine (Ellsworth's Climax)  04:59, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

The Economist is not a reliable source of informations as it is strongly biased, just read the wiki article on this publication, it says clearly that it has strong editorial stance pro globablisation and pro free trade, this is a blatant break of neutrality. The main problem is the misuse of statistics by the media in general and the lack of comprehension in the statistics by the public. These rankings are actually composite indexes so it is very easy to play with them to produce any sort of ranking and therefore mean nothing. Also there is no description of the methodology, the sources, the size of the samples, no indication of the statistical significance of these findings. I think there are two measures that are more or less valid although far from perfect, the Human Development Index and the Gini coefficient. The quality of life is anyway something rather subjective, does anyone seriously thinks that a good quality of life is perceived the same way if you are a papu, an inuit, a bushman, a trader in the city or a hillbilly in the butthole of the US? So please stop bickering on a pointless issue that should not be mentioned in wiki. If it is for bragging about who has the biggest willy, then there are other places than wiki, which is not a school playground. Blastwizard (talk) 10:27, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

So much for assuming good faith on the part of your fellow editors. It makes everything you wrote incredible. Everybody deserves a second chance. Wanna try again? I especially liked your credibility gap as pertains to The Economist!

 —  Paine (Ellsworth's Climax)  13:10, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

I see that Rama, you have once again deleted the controversial material against WP:PRESERVE policy. I'm going to put it back in as per that policy, however I will first give my reasons.

1. The information is good information that is well-cited by a reputable and reliable source.
2. The source in question is a mere five years old.
3. Those who have tried to alter the info cited not-so-reliable tourist sites such as International Living. I subscribe to their email list, so I am familiar with their level of hype. And I firmly trust that their trying to make people believe that France has risen to number one ranking in the QLI from a rank of 25th in a matter of five short years is nothing but hype.
4. The correct procedure before removing the text and source would be to try to find a better, perhaps more recent source with updated information. Failing that, and failing a consensus to remove said material and citation, then the challenging editor(s), in this case Rama and/or Thome66, can raise the issue of reliability of The Economist as a reference source at the Reliable sources/Noticeboard. If the result of this challenge is that the source is unreliable or unsuitable in any way, only then should the claim and citation be removed.
   

Please let's follow the PRESERVE policy and, if the challenging editors so wish, see if the source is too old (five years) or inherently unreliable. Thank you very much!
 —  Paine (Ellsworth's Climax)  02:38, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

As you accurately but unwittingly point out with your "how France can go from 29th place in one 2005 survey to first place in a 2010, no matter who is doing the survey", the same assessment made by two different sources gives strikingly different results. These surveys are therefore not reliable.

As Blastwizard points out,

• The Economist is not a neutral source
• there are more serious statistical indices that serve the same purpose as those you wish to mention, but are more accurate.

The answer is therefore to replace your line with data from a reputable statistical source and use reliable indices such as the Human Development Index of the Gini coefficient. I suggest that you go on GapMinder and toy around a bit to get a culture in what indices are used; it is really fun and a painless way to learn lots of things. Rama (talk) 09:43, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

Just because two surveys give strikingly different results by no means indicates that both are unreliable, only that one is unreliable. And as I said, if we must choose, then the tourist site full of hype ought to be the choice for unreliability.

Just because one editor points out that The Economist is not a neutral source does not make it so.

What indices are used should be pretty standard throughout the country articles. And we should keep them that way to add credibility to the country articles. If the QLI is used as an index standard in all the country articles, then it should continue to be used here in the France article.

 —  Paine (Ellsworth's Climax)  14:08, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

May I respectfully point out to Wikipedia Administrator Rama [15] that the quote "how France can go from 29th place in one 2005 survey to first place in a 2010, no matter who is doing the survey" were my "accurately but unwittingly" uttered words, not Paine Ellsworth's.

--Frania W. (talk) 16:35, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

FRENCH QUALITY OF LIFE INDEX (moved from top of this page)

There is an old Quality of life index from 2005 from Economist Intelligence Unit's Quality of Life Index http://www.economist.com/media/pdf/QUALITY_OF_LIFE.pdf,, in which France is ranked 25th for Quality of Life with their overseas departement included. Later on the Quality of life index has been published by the International Living Magazine in co-operation with the World Health Organization, UNESCO and also The Economist etc, where France ranks 1st for the 5th year in a row (without overseas departement). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quality-of-life_index

Thome66, it would be SO much easier to find your comments and changes if you would sign them using the four tildes, like this: ~~~~ . At the bottom of this page tHere is the similar conversation going on about The Economist and International Living as reliable/unreliable sources. I subscribe to International Living and, while they do have some useful information, much of it is hype. You call the QLI from The Economist "old", however it's ONLY 5 years old, and no later one has been published yet. The Economist is a good, solid reliable source, so I find it hard to believe that France can go from a ranking of 25 all the way to NUMERO UNO in five short years. That's got to be hype, editor Thome66, so please don't put too much stock in it. See also Talk:France#Recent edits for further discussion on this issue. Thank you very much!

 —  Paine (Ellsworth's Climax)  19:37, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

• PS. If you click on the link you gave to International Living, there is a link on that page to an explanation of how they get their info. And in that explanation are these words:

We Admit It—We’re Biased— For the record, we're biased. For every category, we had to make decisions. And, when the numbers our research returned seemed incredible to us...we favored our own experience over published government statistics.

Moreover, that website has been added to Wikipedia's SPAM list!

This shows me that it's all hype from this tourist site, and that we should continue to use The Economist directly until new, unbiased figures are presented. Thank you so much!

 —  Paine (Ellsworth's Climax)  20:04, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

Tourist information sites are certainly no more reliable than The Economist. The problem lies in whether there are unbiased methodologies. As I pointed earlier, you can fiddle with coefficients to obtain any ranking you want. Moreover, there's a very big difference between a ranking reflecting the opinion expressed in an economics magazine and for example a peer reviewed journal by academic researchers or some publications by some international organisations such as the IMF, the WTO, the OECD or some UN agencies. The rankings appearing in the Economist or International Living are just dubious opinions. Now for the discrepancies in the rankings, they certainly arise from differences in the methodologies but also from the sampling. I would not be surprised if there was a big difference of ranking whether the overseas territories of France are included or not. The comparisons between rankings made according to different criteria are meaningless! Also I question the need and usefulness of these rankings if not accompanied by a quantifiable measure, as it is the case for example with GDP, Gini coefficient and Human Development Index. Another problem with the rankings is that when based on a quantitative measure, they tend to ignore that often near the top, the differences are not statistically significant, specially when the progression curve is asymptotic.Blastwizard (talk) 23:02, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

BW, that's just not true, and I'm not the only editor who thinks so (see next section). The Economist is allowed as a reference because it's tried and true. The tourists sites either are or should be on the SPAM list. I agree that the indeces might be toyed with, since this is what the tourist sites do. However The Economist's figures can be seen as accurate and only five years old. Nor are they dubious opinions. When they are correctly assimilated, these figures can be very helpful for readers of this encyclopedia.

 —  Paine (Ellsworth's Climax)  18:51, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

Your faith in The Economist is almost as ludicrous as the faith other contributors have in International Living. This is not because The Economist is admitted as a reliable source that it is. The wiki page The Economist clearly states that it has a strong editorial stance, therefore it is openly biased. I have read the Economist in the past, I know how biased it is towards Milton Friedman's economical theories which are a complete failure in the light of the current economical crisis. Facts related in the Economist are surely reliable, but not their pseudo statistical analysis that are used to illustrate their point of view. I can guarantee, that given the same raw data as used in the Economist, I would be able to produce a completely different ranking and my analysis would be equally valid. My opinion is that neither the Economist nor International Living should be used. The main problem with statistical analysis in the media, the all too frequent confusion between data handling and data manipulation.

Finally I reiterate my point which may have fallen into death ears, the quality of life is not quantifiable nor measurable as it is a subjective matter, that can be interpreted differently in different cultural contexts. Therefore an international ranking on quality of life is a non-sense. Personally I don't care if France ranks behind Papua New Guinea or before Tonga, what I care about is the encyclopaedic nature of the information related in wiki.

Before playing around with international rankings, people should learn about statistics. I'm a bit annoyed with systematic ranking of countries, this is a fallacious information which in most cases means nothing when comparing countries that have similar scores, for example in the HDI international ranking, I doubt there is any significant difference between countries in the top 20, what is informative is the grouping countries that have similar scores. Blastwizard (talk) 23:13, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 3 April 2014

Please update the name of the Prime Minister of France in section "Government". Manuel Valls is Prime Minister since April 2th 2014

[...] and the Government, led by the president-appointed Prime Minister, currently Jean-Marc Ayrault.

must be changed to

[...] and the Government, led by the president-appointed Prime Minister, currently Manuel Valls (formaly Jean-Marc Ayrault).

92.151.241.247 (talk) 21:16, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

Not done: please provide reliable sources that support the change you want to be made. — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(t • e • c)} 22:36, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

Reliable source? Come on, this is public knowledge and can be easily verified on any public newspaper or media site or on the sites of the French government. It is pitiful that Wikipedia still cites Ayrault as French prime minister 25 days after he has been replaced by Manuel Valls (I am writing this on April 27th, 2014). BTW, it might be of interest to mention that the new prime minister Valls was born a Spaniard and became a French citizen only when he was about 21 years old. Many people from Spain were delighted to see that a person coming from their country became French Prime Minister, just a few days after a woman of Spanish origin, Anne Hidalgo, became mayor of France's capital and largest city, Paris. The change must be done. Laurent r (talk) 21:23, 27 April 2014 (UTC)Laurent r — Preceding unsigned comment added by Laurent r (talk • contribs) 19:53, 27 April 2014 (UTC)

And, BTW, if you need reliable source, check the French Wikipedia page for France, at least they have it right (see the box on the right). Laurent r (talk) 21:23, 27 April 2014 (UTC)Laurent r

Pronunciation

Quote: " France (UK: /ˈfrɑːns/; US: /ˈfræns/). " This is wrong. Firstly because the most common US pronunciation is actually /freæ̯ns/ or something like that, but more importantly because /fræns/ is indeed used in more than half of Britain. Why not say more simply and more correctly: France (/fræns/ or /frɑːns/) ???? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.206.166.71 (talk) 21:21, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

According to oxforddictionaries.com, /frɑːns/ is the pronunciation 'as spoken in the south of England'. oxforddictionaries.com also includes /frɑns/ as the pronunciation for 'US English'. Rob (talk | contribs) 11:57, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

New semi-protected edit request to change the name of France's prime minister

On April 2, 2014, Manuel Valls replaced Jean-Marc Ayrault as France's prime minister. This is just a fact that is easy to check. The next day, on April 3, 2014, someone asked for an update on this article on France. On the same day, someone else refused, based on the preposterous claim that the request's author had not provided reliable source supporting the proposed change, whereas it was a simple fact that was easy to verify. Twenty-five days later, on April 27, I tried to help and commented that "this is public knowledge and can be easily verified on any public newspaper or media site or on the sites of the French government. It is pitiful that Wikipedia still cites Ayrault as French prime minister 25 days after he has been replaced by Manuel Valls (I am writing this on April 27th, 2014)." As of today, another 10 days later, this is still uncorrected, and this is even more pitiful that Wikipedia still has the wrong information 36 days after Valls' nomination. It is so easy to check the fact that I do not understand how Wikipedia can fall into such bureaucratic stupidity. Don't get me wrong, I love Wikipedia, I am an occasional content contributor (French and English versions of Wikipedia) and my wife and myself have also contributed money to Wikipedia in 2012 and 2013. As I said earlier, the French Wikipedia has the right information on the subject. This a link to the Official French Government portal: . Anything else needed? I will be happy to provide it. Please make the change, this is getting really ridiculous. Laurent r (talk) 22:56, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

Ouch! Done. Sorry. Thanks. RashersTierney (talk) 23:20, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

Thank you, I am happy to see that this is finally corrected. Laurent r (talk) 23:45, 29 May 2014 (UTC)

Edit request

The wikilinks in the infobox regarding France/Metropolitan France population rank should be to List of countries by population and not to the specific 2005 list of countries by population. Argovian (talk) 19:22, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

I see that it is in-built into the infobox. Could someone please look into addressing this? Argovian (talk) 21:59, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

The lead should mention the key events of WW II

The leads for the USA and Germany articles both make a brief mention of WW II in the lead. I think that the massive changes that France underwent during WW II, such as occupation, and having 76,000 Jews deported to death camps, should be mentioned in the lead. This is not a minor footnote in France's history, these are major 20th century events (Nazi occupation and the deportation of French citizens to death camps). The lead should not just list the celebrated achievements of France; it should also make reference to the major negative events in French history.OnBeyondZebrax (talk) 20:49, 24 September 2014 (UTC)

Unlike for the USA (which became a superpower) or Germany (which was dismantled), WWII resulted for France in a "statu quo ante bellum", no territorial gains, no major political change. In the long history WWII is a detail of France's history and shouldn't be the only historical event listed in the lead. For other countries that did not experience profound changes following WWII, such as the United Kingdom or Belgium, WWII is not mentioned in their lead. In the current situation, your addition seems a bit out of context: "oh by the way, France was occupied during WWII"... Great! But what about the occupation of France in 1815, 1871, and Northern France during WWI? Do all these occupations should be listed because they had an impact on France's history? Blaue Max (talk) 08:34, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

The WW II occupation by the Nazis merits special attention because it resulted in 76,000 French Jews being sent to death camps and concentration camps. That makes WW II merit attention in the lead. So it's "oh, by the way, France was occupied by the Nazis and many French citizens were sent to death camps." OnBeyondZebrax (talk) 21:29, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

Well 1,4 millions Frenchmen died during WWI. It merit more attention then. Blaue Max (talk) 06:12, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

WW II in France resulted in the country being torn in two, with some joining the Free French Army or the Resistance, while others collaborated with the Nazis by serving in les Milices or even the Waffen-SS. I think it was a significant time in modern French history, and could be mentioned in the lead.OnBeyondZebrax (talk) 22:56, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

I think the lede should mention WW II and the war in Algiers, because the latter almost led to a civil war.OnBeyondZebrax (talk) 23:16, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

You're not answering to my arguments: "Unlike for the USA (which became a superpower) or Germany (which was dismantled), WWII resulted for France in a "statu quo ante bellum", no territorial gains, no major political change. In the long history WWII is a detail of France's history and shouldn't be the only historical event listed in the lead. For other countries that did not experience profound changes following WWII, such as the United Kingdom or Belgium, WWII is not mentioned in their lead."

Plus it's contrary to WP:LEAD Blaue Max (talk) 19:53, 8 October 2014 (UTC)

I find the arguments for WWII mentions in the lead unpersuasive. I think at most WP:WEIGHT allows for a brief mention along the lines of "...During the second world war France was occupied by Nazi Germany..." anything else puts a lot of weight on something that, although important to the world as a whole and fairly recent, is a comparatively minor blip in a countries many hundred year history. CombatWombat42 (talk) 19:57, 8 October 2014 (UTC)

WP:Lead says the lead "should define the topic, establish context, explain why the topic is notable, and summarize the most important points, including any prominent controversies." Both WWII and the War in Algeria led to prominent controversies (regarding the involvement of French officials in the deportation of Jews in WW II in the former and the near- coup d'etat in the latter).OnBeyondZebrax (talk) 20:06, 8 October 2014 (UTC)

@CombatWombat42:, Blaue Max and OnBeyondZebrax - I'm beginning to see an edit war brewing. Why not open this issue up to a WP:RFC and allow input from the wider community? I'd much rather this issue was discussed than have to take administrative action. I hate doing that unless it is absolutely necessary. Mjroots (talk) 20:10, 8 October 2014 (UTC)

I don't want to have an edit war. I would prefer to have a broader discussion.OnBeyondZebrax (talk) 20:15, 8 October 2014 (UTC)

Wow, way to jump the gun, Mjroots looks like a pretty typical BRD cycle to me. How about you don't threaten administrative action over a single revert. CombatWombat42 (talk) 20:36, 8 October 2014 (UTC)

Why mention WWII -which resulted in a "status quo ante bellum" for France- and a civil war -which never occurred- in the lead? I don't see the point... it's against wiki conventions to add such irrelevant fact in an already overloaded lead. Blaue Max (talk) 20:18, 8 October 2014 (UTC)

Algerian War

The Algerian War was a major controversy for France, for the "use of torture and "often illegal and human-rights-violating counter-insurgency measures applied by the French military against the FLN, namely torture, forced disappearances and illegal executions" (from the War in Algeria article). WP:Lead says prominent controversies should be summarized. Perhaps more pertinent than the War in Algeria almost leading to a civil war is the controversies regarding torture and illegal executions.OnBeyondZebrax (talk) 20:37, 8 October 2014 (UTC)

Well, tortures and executions were perpetrated by both sides, it is subject to controversy and should be put in perspective. Blaue Max (talk) 20:59, 8 October 2014 (UTC)

Could one of you start an "Algerian war section"? I think it would be less confusing if the Algeran war was not discussed under a section titled "The lead should mention the key events of WW II" CombatWombat42 (talk) 21:25, 8 October 2014 (UTC)

Promotional travel guide approach

I believe that there is a tendency to create a lead section in which only positive achievements and accomplishments are listed. Sort of what you expect to see in a promotional travel guide. However, this is an encyclopedia article, so the darker elements in a country's past, such as France deporting Jews to death camps, or the War in Algeria involving the French government torturing and executing FLN fighters, can be mentioned.OnBeyondZebrax (talk) 19:09, 8 October 2014 (UTC)

1) The lead should mention the main outlines of a country, not details.

2) "France deported Jews". This is a dishonest statement. In reality, the puppet Vichy regime agreed to deliver foreign Jews to Germans in order to protect French Jews. It meant that Vichy saved most of the jewish population of France... Please learn history before editing...

3) Torture was perpetrated by both sides in the Algerian war.

4) In the article, "darker elements" are mentionned (see examples below), but they are relevant events.

Examples: "The Albigensian Crusade was launched in 1209 to eliminate the heretical Cathars in the south-western area of modern-day France. In the end, the Cathars were exterminated and the autonomous County of Toulouse was annexed into the kingdom of France.", "The rise of Protestantism in Europe led France to a civil war known as the French Wars of Religion, where, in the most notorious incident, thousands of Huguenots were murdered in the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre of 1572.", "Louis XVI was convicted of treason and guillotined in 1793. Facing increasing pressure from European monarchies, internal guerrilla wars and counterrevolutions (such as the War in the Vendée or the Chouannerie), the young Republic fell into the Reign of Terror. Between 1793 and 1794, between 16,000 and 40,000 people were executed. " Blaue Max (talk) 22:00, 8 October 2014 (UTC)

History of France in body of article, First Indochina war section

Blaue Max deleted this sentence about the French Army in Indochina: "The French Army tortured Vietnamese prisoners. ." This seems like a policy to remove any factual information which casts a negative light on France.OnBeyondZebrax (talk) 17:02, 10 October 2014 (UTC)

References

I've already answer to your question in a previous discussion and you failed to answer why this fact is relevant on a general rticle about France. I note that the article USA , that you like to mention, does not include the well-documented US crimes in Vietnam or Iraq. Blaue Max (talk) 17:35, 10 October 2014 (UTC)

I

Interesting you should raise the U.S. article, because I have been working on it. The US article now mentions the Vietnam War in the lead, and the sentence on the Vietnam war has been expanded to give more information about the conflict. I hope to add the information about Vietnam war crimes soon.OnBeyondZebrax (talk) 19:51, 14 October 2014 (UTC)

History of France in body of article, WW II section

Blaue Max deleted the following sentence, calling it an epiphenomenon: "Between 18,000 to 22,000 French men joined the Waffen-SS, an organization linked to numerous war crimes.." It may be an epiphenomenon, but it a pertinent one, as it shows the support that existed for the Nazis. This isn't a figure for French people joining the Germany Army, it is the figure for French people joining the Waffen-SS, an organization closely linked to the Nazi Party.OnBeyondZebrax (talk) 16:51, 10 October 2014 (UTC)

It is an epiphenomenon: in comparison, Belgium (20 times smaller than France) has provided more SS than France. 22,000 soldiers throughout the war, it is not much... in comparison, the FFL counted twice that number of soldiers for the sole 1940 year. We are on the general article for "France". We are not on a topic dedicated to World War II, where this kind of details could be interesting. Besides that the presentation is misleading, the French SS did not commit war crimes themselves. A consensus could be to add this sentence: "WWII was coupled in France with a civil war between the partisans of Vichy and the Free French." Blaue Max (talk) 17:29, 10 October 2014 (UTC)

References

We're speaking about the body of article here, not about the lead. Blaue Max (talk) 08:15, 15 October 2014 (UTC)

Proposed history of France paragraph for lead

New proposed paragraph for the lead, a summary of the excellent lead from History of France in one paragraph, with the addition of the Indochina war.OnBeyondZebrax (talk) 03:08, 22 October 2014 (UTC)

During the Iron Age, what is now France was inhabited by the Gauls, a Celtic people. The Gauls were conquered by the Roman Empire in 51 BC, which held Gaul until 486. The Gauls faced raids and migration from the Germanic Franks, who dominated the region for hundreds of years, eventually creating the medieval Kingdom of France. France's victory in the Hundred Years' War (1337 to 1453) strengthened French nationalism and made France a centralized absolute monarchy. A worldwide colonial empire was established in the 16th century. In the late 18th century, the monarchy was overthrown in the French Revolution. The country was governed as a Republic, until the French Empire was declared by Napoleon Bonaparte. Following Napoleon's defeat, France was ruled as a monarchy, then briefly as a Second Republic, and then as a Second Empire, until a more lasting French Third Republic was established in 1870. In World War I, France was one of the Triple Entente powers fighting against Germany and the Central Powers. France was one of the Allied Powers in World War II, but it was conquered by Nazi Germany in 1940. Following liberation in 1944, a Fourth Republic was established, but it lasted less than a decade and a half. After WW II, France was defeated in the First Indochina War. In the wake of the May 1958 crisis of the Algerian War, the Fourth Republic collapsed and was succeeded by the Charles de Gaulle-led French Fifth Republic. Into the 1960s decolonization saw most of the French colonial empire become independent.

Colonial wars in the lead

I believe the lead should make a short reference to the colonial wars, perhaps "France fought two colonial wars after WW II, in Indochina, and in Algeria, with the latter almost leading to a civil war in France." Blaue Max has said an almost-civil war doesn't qualify for the lead. I disagree. It shows the impact that the war had in France. Thus far, in trying to negotiate changes to the lead, Blaue Max has allowed zero changes to the lead. The lead should mention these two wars, which had such a major impact on France.OnBeyondZebrax (talk) 00:20, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

I have added the Vietnam War to the lead of the US article, and it has been accepted. I proposed including the death toll for the Holocaust in the lead of the WW II article, and it has been accepted. However, here on the France article, there is a policy of "no changes." The heading right above the edit box reminds users that "work submitted to Wikipedia can be edited...". However, this does not seem to be true for the lead of the France article.OnBeyondZebrax (talk) 00:25, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

You can edit Wikipedia, but not pushing you point of view without consensus.Blaue Max (talk) 08:13, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

If there is to be a mention of history in the lead, it should be balanced. As it stands this is the only history-related sentence I see in the lead: "France has been a major power in Europe since the Late Middle Ages, reaching the height of global prominence during the 19th and early 20th centuries, when it possessed the second-largest colonial empire in the world.[6]", which neglects to mention the subsequent decline in influence and breakup of the empire. I would either remove this "major power" sentence and leave history for the history section, or complete the picture by saying what happened. Noting individual wars gets too specific for the lead, there have been so many where would it end? My first reaction to the colonial wars sentence is: why that and not WWII? Then someone could say: why WWII but not WWI? A big rabbit hole there.... Vrac (talk) 02:22, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

A rabbit hole, this is exactly where mentioning individual wars will lead. What about the Franco-Prussian war, the Napoleonic Wars or the Hundred Years War? They all had a tremendous impact on France.... France's history is a huge topic and cannot be reduced to three recent wars, we need to put it in perspective. I also support the suppresion of this sentence or status quo. We don't need to be more specific in the lead.Blaue Max (talk) 08:13, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

I don't support the status quo. The decline of influence and breakup of the empire is equally notable to its rise, see WP:BALANCE. Vrac (talk) 16:53, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

The current version implies the decline of its empire, but why not. I suggest this sentence: "...reaching the height of global prominence during the 19th and early 20th centuries, when it possessed the second-largest colonial empire in the world, until its dissolution during the second part of the 20th century.", although it's a bit redundant. Blaue Max (talk) 17:06, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

Why can the location of the wars not be named? "...reaching the height of global prominence during the 19th and early 20th centuries, when it possessed the second-largest colonial empire in the world, until its dissolution during the second part of the 20th century due to colonial wars in Indochina and Algeria."OnBeyondZebrax (talk) 18:49, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

Because it is not true. The French colonial empire wasn't dissolved because of the wars of Indochina and Algeria. It's much more complex than that. Blaue Max (talk) 19:06, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

Mentioning WW I and II can be done in a two sentences, it's not a big deal: "WW I led to approximately 1.4 million French dead and the destruction of many French resources. WW II led to the occupation of France by Nazi Germany, with a Vichy collaboration government controlling part of France."OnBeyondZebrax (talk) 18:59, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

And why not mentionning the Napoleonic Wars or the Hundred Years War? The Seven Years War is also important in French history! If we add all these conflicts it would be a full article, not the lead! Blaue Max (talk) 19:06, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

Check out the US lede...it has a history section which walks the reader through all the major wars:OnBeyondZebrax (talk) 16:41, 17 October 2014 (UTC)

Driven by the doctrine of manifest destiny, the United States embarked on a vigorous expansion across North America throughout the 19th century. This involved displacing native tribes, acquiring new territories, and gradually admitting new states. The American Civil War ended legal slavery in the country. By the end of the 19th century, the United States extended into the Pacific Ocean, and its economy began to soar. The Spanish–American War and World War I confirmed the country's status as a global military power. The United States emerged from World War II as a global superpower, the first country with nuclear weapons, and a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council. As part of the Cold War, American troops fought Communist forces in the Korean War of 1950–53 and fought a proxy war in Southeast Asia with the Vietnam War (1955-1975). The end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union left the United States as the sole superpower.

That was recently added by you, so it's POV to try to push for it in this sense. 172.56.7.217 (talk) 08:32, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

References

Even without my contributions, the US lead still covers the Indian Wars, Civil War, WW I and WW II. I just added in the Korean and Vietnam wars. My point is that the France lead could cover more French history.OnBeyondZebrax (talk) 20:15, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

The United States has a shorter history and is still new compared to France. It also says that France has a long history and already makes a mention of the colonial wars. 172.56.32.48 (talk) 06:41, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

Just a point, the lead mentions colonialism, but does not mention the Indochina War or the Algerian War.OnBeyondZebrax (talk) 03:24, 22 October 2014 (UTC)

It's like China and India's articles who also have a long history, but their articles don't list all of their wars that they've ever been through either. There's also Spain, Germany, the Philippines, South Korea. 172.56.7.129 (talk) 18:50, 22 October 2014 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 20 November 2014

France is not a complete peninsula it is actually a piece of a continent. and there are Asians that work in the Effie tower. 208.84.213.224 (talk) 01:28, 20 November 2014 (UTC)

"there are Asians that work in the Effie tower": okay, but this page is for requesting changes to the article in the form of "please change X to Y". Stickee (talk) 02:51, 20 November 2014 (UTC)