French people

French people (French: Les Français, lit. 'The French') are the individuals who are identified with the country of France, or more broadly, a global sociolinguistic group that share a common connection through the French language, culture, and history that originated in Western Europe. The Francophone world is one of the most geographically widespread linguistic communities.

The French people are primarily descended from Gallo-Romans (Romanized Celts) and Germanic peoples such as the Franks, the Visigoths, the Suebi and the Burgundians who settled in Gaul from east of the Rhine after the fall of the Roman Empire, as well as various later waves of lower-level irregular migration that have continued to the present day. The Norsemen also settled in Normandy in the 10th century and contributed significantly to the ancestry of the Normans. Furthermore, regional ethnic minorities also exist within France that have distinct lineages, languages and cultures such as Bretons in Brittany, Occitans in Occitania, Basques in the French Basque Country, Catalans in northern Catalonia, Germans in Alsace, Corsicans in Corsica and Flemings in French Flanders.

France has long been a patchwork of local customs and regional differences, and while most French people still speak the French language as their mother tongue, languages like Picard, Poitevin-Saintongeais, Franco-Provencal, Occitan, Auvergnat, Corsican, Basque, Lorraine Franconian, Alsatian, Norman, Breton, french flemish and Catalan remain spoken in their respective regions. Arabic is also widely spoken, arguably the largest minority language in France as of the 21st century (a spot previously held by Breton and Occitan).

Modern French society is a melting pot. From the middle of the 19th century, it experienced a high rate of inward migration, mainly consisting of Italians, Portuguese, Spaniards, Berbers, Arabs, Jews, Sub-Saharan Africans, Chinese, and other peoples from the Middle East and East Asia, and the government, defining France as an inclusive nation with universal values, advocated assimilation through which immigrants were expected to adhere to French values and cultural norms. Nowadays, while the government has let newcomers retain their distinctive cultures since the mid-1980s and requires from them a mere integration, French citizens still equate their nationality with citizenship as does French law.