Talk:France

To whoever added : '*If only strict France is considered this number lows to some 40 milion', the least you could do is explain to the rest of us what on earth you mean by 'strict France.' The first time I read it I thought you meant the Metropole, but then I saw the entry for Spain and realize that you're removing some groups (Basques? Catalans? Occitans?). --MichaelTinkler

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I wonder why someone has added, among the languages spoken in France, German and Dutch. These are not spoken in France, except by tourists. -- GP

There really is a very small minority of Dutch speakers in France, located in the northeast corner, at the Belgian border. I don't known whether these people speak it as a first language, however. It is also claimed that the possibility to meet a Dutchman in the summer is higher in France than in Amsterdam, so there are lot of people speaking Dutch ;-)

Well, though the Flemish (rather than Dutch) traditions may still be present around Lille, I have never met any Flemish-speaking person coming from French Flanders. Maybe among people over 70 years ?

While Flemish is really just a dialect of Dutch (although many speakers of both languages will deny that), I really don't know who speak it, it is just mentioned in most reputable language reports of France. Jeronimo

I could image some people in the Alsace/Elzas speaking German, but I don't really know. Jeronimo

You may be right, but actually they probably wouldn't agree ; the dialect(s) spoken in Alsace is (are) germanic, but Alsatians are reluctant to call it German. Of course, this is subject to debate.

I have replaced "Dutch" and "German" by "Flemish" and "Alsatien" respectively. These are the actual names of these dialects, and they both link to articles, which in turn link to "Dutch" and "German". - User:Olivier

I've replace Alsatien by Alsacien. First because it's the way we write it. Then, because by judging the number of hits on google (35 instead of 28 200 for Alsacien), most being personal pages or wikipedia page, it's obviously not the english way to write it. Mispelling probably. user:anthere

I'm the one who originally added Dutch and German to the list of languages spoken in France. As has been pointed out, both are indeed used in France, though mostly in their local dialect form (Flemish and Alsatian), with the standard language serving as the language used in education and, generally, writing. Even though only French is an offical language in France, and Flemish has a positively tiny number of speakers, they still deserve a mention. I've further put "German" back in, partly because Alsatian is strictly speaking just a (Alemannic) dialect of German, partly because "Alsatian" doesn't entirely cover the German spoken in Lorraine (which AFAIK is Franconian in origin). -Scipius

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The article regions of France says there are 22 regions, whereas this one says 23: what is the actual number? Why is there this difference? - User:Oliver `

23 is the real number. There are 22 on the main territory (régions métropolitaine), and 1 more including the oversea departments -- ant

Has the 23rd region the exact same status as the other ones? "with conseil regional"? where is the capital/seat of the conseil regional of this region? - User:Olivier

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I'd like to know what defines an "important" city. Honestly, I have never heard of Doue-la-Fontaine, and other cities listed here seems not to be major cities to me at all. If the definition of an important city is its size and maybe something very particular about its activity, I'd like the size and maybe the specific activity to be clearly defined. It seems to me some cities added here are not much more than big villages, and it does not look "serious" at all. It sounds as if some are the big villages where the editor is living. I totally agree these cities could have a room in wikipedia, but not listed as major cities. We could link them directly from their department rather, or from a tourism page. I'll do it if nobody objects.

• Doué la fontaine
• Barcelonnette
• Montrichard
• Noyon
• Rochefort
• Bayonne (maybe)
• Firmini
• Foix
• Saint Girons (and not Saint Giron)
• Saint Raphaël
• Tavaux

user:anthere

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I believe it is imperative that this be moved to Freedom Land[?] Susan Mason