Talk:France/Archive 7

Page contents not supported in other languages.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Archive 1 ← Archive 5 Archive 6 Archive 7

Removal of map

France and its region.png

On 00:21, 23 June 2023, User:SnowieLuna1212 removed the map File:France and its region.png, with the explanation, "Unneeded PNG map".

There is one other map ({{France Regions Labelled Map}}) that shows the immediate region of France but its focus and purpose is to show the inside regions of France, not its surrounding region. It doesn't provide enough of a regional context of France as the removed map whose purpose is to actually show the context of France in Europe with the names of the places.

I created the removed map because when I came to the page the existing maps in the infobox didn't provide enough information or idea as to France in its region. The average reader limit themselves to the lead and infobox and won't be looking through all the article for a map of France. Therefore I propose to keep both maps, restoring the removed one to where it was. Regards, Thinker78 (talk) 03:24, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

Yeah, this makes sense to me. Mathglot (talk) 07:12, 20 July 2023 (UTC)
while yes it makes sense, it is a poor map that honestly is not needed, just put the template in the switcher map instead of a poorly detailed map. SnowieLuna1212 (talk) 15:03, 21 July 2023 (UTC)
@SnowieLuna1212 Can you specify what you found poor in the map? Thanks. Thinker78 (talk) 03:45, 22 July 2023 (UTC)
@SnowieLuna1212 Per WP:TALKDONTREVERT, "The arguments "I just don't like it" and "I just like it" usually carry no weight whatsoever." Regards, Thinker78 (talk) 21:42, 22 July 2023 (UTC)
Support keeping both maps. It's intensely frustrating to come to a major geography article and find either a broader-geographical-context map or an internal-divisions map missing. Both are important encyclopedic information. And SVG fetishism is tedious; there is no guideline or policy support for deleting images because they are in PNG format.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  23:11, 23 July 2023 (UTC)
Also, per MOS:IMAGEQUALITY, Use the best quality images available. Poor-quality images—dark or blurry; showing the subject too small, hidden in clutter, or ambiguous; and so on—should not be used unless absolutely necessary.[...] A map of Moldova should show its frontiers with Romania and Ukraine, so people may know where the country is located in relation to its neighbors. Best use a map with names so people know which country is which. Regards, Thinker78 (talk) 01:02, 28 August 2023 (UTC)

Too long?

There's been a "too long" tag on this article since June, but the article is already split into many many sub-articles and I don't actually see scope for significantly reducing the length of the article without significantly reducing its utility. The tag should go. Furius (talk) 23:06, 2 September 2022 (UTC)

The presence of sub-articles is a good indicator that text should be moved there. The article is over double our usual rule of thumb. The table of contents takes up multiple screens. CMD (talk) 23:17, 2 September 2022 (UTC)
Ok, but what specifically would you move? The article should still provide short summaries here of the sub-articles and I just don't see space for making those summaries shorter. Removing whole sections in order to reduce the length of the table of contents would make it harder for users to find the sub-articles that they are actually interested in.
Articles for well-sourced countries with long histories regularly exceed our rule of thumb. This article is a similar length to United States, Russia, Greece, and is shorter than United Kingdom and Italy. Furius (talk) 10:43, 3 September 2022 (UTC)
If anything is to go, I'm thinking the Climate section could be cut to a short paragraph with the details moving to a new Climate of France; many of the Culture subsections could be cut down; and some detail could be removed from the Military section. Largoplazo (talk) 11:38, 3 September 2022 (UTC)
Yes, you're right that the climate section is ripe for cutting. If anything were salvageable, I'd be inclined to move it to the Geography of France article. I've made some cuts to the military section Furius (talk) 18:01, 5 September 2022 (UTC)
I've done that now. Can anyone see any more areas that could be cut back? Furius (talk) 09:21, 8 September 2022 (UTC)
Dude, this article is so long, that if I read it aloud, I would take way over an hour to finish! Of course there is gonna be a tag saying too long! Read this as fast as you can aloud and time it, then reply to @Odin&Sleipnir to tell me how long it took and about how many times you stumbled while reading it. -_- Odin&Sleipnir (talk) 17:02, 25 May 2023 (UTC)
This page has more than 130kB or readable prose: it is grossly overlength. Given that there are already separate history, geography, politics, economiy, demographics and culture child articles, all of these section can be trimmed liberally. Iskandar323 (talk) 09:10, 20 May 2023 (UTC)
There are so many articles longer than this one, shouldn’t all of them get tagged too? France is one of the most popular articles on Wikipedia, and why have the ugly too long tag on it but not on many longer articles?SaturatedFatts (talk) 21:28, 1 June 2023 (UTC)
So tag the other articles. Put the tag on this one to invite people to cut it down to a reasonable size. There are reasons why, for the benefit of the readers, there's a recommended maximum size. Largoplazo (talk) 21:35, 1 June 2023 (UTC)
That's a good idea Odin&Sleipnir (talk) 13:06, 4 June 2023 (UTC)
I have seen "too long" tags appearing on the top of various articles. There were no problems of such kind before the hideous Wikipedia:Vector 2022 was imposed. Is the new design the reason why now many articles are perceived as being too long? Æo (talk) 11:30, 12 July 2023 (UTC)
Perhaps, but WP:TOOLONG hasn't actually changed during the same time span, so any article too long now was presumably too long then also. Vector has simply made it more obvious due to the narrower page column. Iskandar323 (talk) 11:38, 12 July 2023 (UTC)
This article is now smaller than United Kingdom, is the tag still necessary? 2603:9001:E01:5E62:2CCA:120F:AB67:575 (talk) 15:14, 16 July 2023 (UTC)
Yes. The important metric for size is readable prose rather than raw byte count; by this measure, it remains significantly longer than the UK article. Nikkimaria (talk) 16:17, 16 July 2023 (UTC)
I feel as though the UK, as a whole, would have a lot more to talk about than France... any other thoughts on this? X Odin&Sleipnir (talk) 04:40, 20 July 2023 (UTC)
FYI I set up a topic about France's history (of course), if anyone is interested? At the bottom. ⇩⇓↓⇩⇓↓⇩⇓↓ Odin&Sleipnir (talk) 04:52, 20 July 2023 (UTC)
That has been peremptorily closed and archived. WP is not a general forum for discussion of things like which country has the more interesting history.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  23:16, 23 July 2023 (UTC)
I never typed out anything that compared which country has a more interesting history... I only typed about how fascinating France's history was to me. <(-_-)> -'sigh' Odin&Sleipnir (talk) 15:28, 2 August 2023 (UTC)
The article size is down about 25% since this discussion was started. Given that we have a mature child article on the History of France, the 57kb § History section here with nine subsections probably could be significantly trimmed. The other major subtopics, § Geography, § Government and politics, § Economy, § Demographics, § Culture, all have child articles and could be trimmed as well.
On the other hand, History of France is longer than this article is, and is not tagged for length. A lot of times on such discussions about length I see a lot of pushback, based on the idea that WP:SIZESPLIT is neither a policy nor a guideline, and we should just ignore it and use common sense. I think I'd worry more about what is best for our readers, rather than some numbers in a table that have not changed in 15 years when technology was more limiting. The sectioning and subsectioning of the article is ample and clear, and makes it easy to navigate the page, contrary to one assertion in the tag. Unless there's a specific argument for how trimming this article would help readers, I think I could support removing the tag at this point. Mathglot (talk) 19:08, 2 August 2023 (UTC)
At least fix the lead. Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Lead section#LengthMoxy- 22:41, 2 August 2023 (UTC)
What would you remove from the lead? Furius (talk) 13:57, 3 August 2023 (UTC)
¯∨( ˘~˘ )∨¯ ~~~? Odin&Sleipnir (talk) 14:50, 3 August 2023 (UTC)
Easy to start with two of the three paragraphs dedicated to History. CMD (talk) 15:00, 3 August 2023 (UTC)
Think England is a good example of a county with a very rich history like France. That page seems to have dealt with that better by keeping its history sections/paragraphs short yet well detailed. It's a good example with Japan. 109.156.3.29 (talk) 09:00, 16 August 2023 (UTC)
I think these could be merged in some way to maybe even one, consider saying something like "France's history is among the longest in Europe..." InvadingInvader (userpage, talk) 05:09, 30 August 2023 (UTC)
The proverbial snowball has a better chance than that happening. Mathglot (talk) 05:30, 30 August 2023 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 7 September 2023

The data on religions (in the infobox) is clearly false, and I can assure you of that as a Frenchman. Here are the latest official figures: - atheists: 51% - Catholics: 29% - Muslims: 10% - Non-Catholic Christians (Protestants, Orthodox, etc.): 9% - Oters (Judaism, Buddhists, ...): 1% Here are the sources from the national statistics institute: https://www.insee.fr/fr/statistiques/6793308?sommaire=6793391#:~:text=En%202019%E2%80%912020%2C%2029%20%25,autres%20se%20disent%20sans%20religion. Ulysse.mey (talk) 21:42, 7 September 2023 (UTC)

 Done You are correct. The currently-cited stats are from an unreliable online poll by a private agency, where 10% of respondents declined to answer, and whose methodology disclosure is an unacceptable mere 3 sentences.
The one you bring up had rigorous oversight from various governmental statistics agencies, had an order of magnitude more respondents, reached out to respondents in various ways (phone/mail/in-person) selected from an official government census, and hired translators for respondents who don't speak French. Far better. The survey was only for ages 18-59 but it's still the best data we have by far.
I've kept the separation between Catholic and non-Catholic denominations because that's straight from the source and I see no reason to deviate from it. DFlhb (talk) 12:05, 9 September 2023 (UTC)

Population

"With an estimated January 2023 population of 68,042,591 people, France is the 20th most populous country in the world, the third-most populous in Europe (after Russia and Germany)..." So the UK, with an estimated population 100,000 more than France, isn't part of Europe? 2600:1702:3930:4CB0:A924:99BC:B8B3:BF3C (talk) 20:41, 16 September 2023 (UTC)

This website gives a higher number for the UK, but isn't an official UK gov't website. I can't find the ONS source they refer to; the ONS doesn't seem to have produced a recent estimate. The CIA World Factbook number cited in the infobox of United Kingdom is higher than the one we give here for France, but the France number is sourced to the national statistics office, while the UK infobox number is cited to the CIA World Factbook. The CIA World Factbook gives an even bigger population estimate for France than for the UK (and bigger than official French estimates), so you're comparing things which can't be compared like-to-like.
I don't know think the CIA is a more reliable source on this than national statistics institutions; we should go with official stats where possible. I'll change the UK infobox to rely on World Bank numbers, which are likely more reliable than the CIA factbook. DFlhb (talk) 07:16, 18 September 2023 (UTC)

Lingering presence in West Africa

There's no mention of France's lingering presence in West Africa. Iskandar323 (talk) 07:25, 24 October 2023 (UTC)

There's a paragraph on it in "foreign relations": "France retains strong political and economic influence in its former African colonies (Françafrique) and has supplied economic aid and troops for peacekeeping missions in Ivory Coast and Chad. From 2012 to 2021, France and other African states intervened in support of the Malian government in the Northern Mali conflict." Furius (talk) 07:55, 24 October 2023 (UTC)
Ok, well, for balance, there should probably also be a reflection of the less positive takes on this involvement in its former colonies, i.e., from the source above: "Over the past few years there has been a sharp rise in criticism of France across its former colonies in Africa, rooted in a feeling that colonialist practices and paternalistic attitudes never really ended". And also a mention of the control France exerts through the CFA franc, which has been criticised, among other things, as a form of "monetary imperialism" [1]. These things are well covered in literature. Iskandar323 (talk) 08:35, 24 October 2023 (UTC)
The first part of that sentence is studiously neutral "France... Francafrique" and, because this article is currently under a ban(ner) for being too long, I think that is what should be sought here - not a paragraph that mentions criticism of the French African policy (which would oblige us to also mention praise for it), but one that is as bald as possible. You're right that the franc zone ought to be mentioned. I'm not sure whether the peacekeeping missions need to be. Furius (talk) 09:00, 24 October 2023 (UTC)
I'm highlighting some criticisms as a means of underlining the current omissions and the likely imbalance that exists because of them, rather than suggesting any particular framing. Iskandar323 (talk) 09:17, 24 October 2023 (UTC)
I'm not sure where this might go aside from Foreign relations. I agree the XAF/XOF are likely due enough to include as a specific example of economic influence, and that the current specific examples of peacekeeping could be removed. A replacement to maintain the mention of military influence would be to add a more timeless note that France has continued to maintain military bases in some of its former African colonies. CMD (talk) 10:32, 24 October 2023 (UTC)
Thanks for this. I see that the specific source for the peacekeeping missions is from 2011 and refers to operations at that time. A lot has changed since then and I wonder whether there's a more recent source that would better support this more general point about military bases. Furius (talk) 15:53, 24 October 2023 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 28 October 2023

Pakaso1212 (talk) 12:17, 28 October 2023 (UTC)
 Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. Liu1126 (talk) 12:29, 28 October 2023 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 5 November 2023

Change the spelling mistake in the word 'centred' to 'centered' on the right information side panel. This mistake is located where it says "France on the globe centred on Europe" on the three radio buttons directly below the dynamic map of France. Cdeveno (talk) 22:58, 5 November 2023 (UTC)

 Not done: that's how it's spelt in British English. M.Bitton (talk) 23:51, 5 November 2023 (UTC)

I have noticed that France is allowed their coat of arms, but Türkiye isn't.

If you look at the page of France, there's the coat of arms with a little note saying that it hasn't been in law so technically it isn't the coat of arms, and yet we have Türkiye, whom isn't allowed their Emblem (which is treated as a CoA) on their page. Should the coat of arms here be removed due to it not being the official thing, or should it stay, with me asking the same question on the talk page of Türkiye? Is there some rule I'm missing here? If so, please tell me. Kxeon (talk) 22:03, 18 November 2023 (UTC)

UNESCO sites

With now the addition of 3 new sites, France hosts 52 UNESCO world heritage site at the 3rd rank equally with Germany. Can we change 5 to 3 in the introduction part ? 2A01:CB06:B071:B215:188:64B8:B4F4:DC04 (talk) 08:20, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

Anny update ??????? 2A01:CB06:9016:4A72:396A:934C:7CAB:BB28 (talk) 20:00, 21 November 2023 (UTC)
Do you have a source for this? Furius (talk) 21:28, 21 November 2023 (UTC)
Not the original poster by the UNESCO lets you sort by country. First is Italy then China then France and Germany both have 52. That is is available here: https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/&order=region Joiedevivre123321 (talk) 01:21, 22 November 2023 (UTC)
Exactly so can we now please change or do we have to wait 2050? 2A02:8428:AD5E:7C01:DB2:8BA3:A74D:42F4 (talk) 22:58, 24 November 2023 (UTC)
This has been updated grumpy gills--Joiedevivre123321 (talk) 18:09, 26 November 2023 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 7 December 2023

Link correction:

Change reference 339 from "Norman, Max. "The subversive philosophy of Simone Weil". dlv.prospect.gcpp.io. Retrieved 30 August 2023."

To "Norman, Max. "The subversive philosophy of Simone Weil". https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/culture/37517/the-subversive-philosophy-of-simone-weil. Retrieved 30 August 2023. Styx72i (talk) 15:28, 7 December 2023 (UTC)

 Question: does the latter source source support the same content that is attributed to the former? M.Bitton (talk) 16:02, 7 December 2023 (UTC)
I have just checked and yes, it is a relevant source, it even could be the same source as previous, because the links are very similar and now the current link is dead (leads to some sign in page). I will change the reference. Deltaspace42 (talk • contribs) 19:54, 16 December 2023 (UTC)
 Done Deltaspace42 (talk • contribs) 19:59, 16 December 2023 (UTC)

History : Presence in Africa

Could someone remove this assertion "In that year, French troops began the conquest of Algeria, establishing the first colonial presence in Africa since Napoleon's abortive invasion of Egypt in 1798." as this is not true.

French presence in Gorée and Saint-Louis, Senegal was unchallenged since at least 1814.


Thank you

2A02:2788:925:E1AD:CD4:5FAE:E3F0:9A4B (talk) 04:57, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

It seems you're correct. I've removed that assertion. Largoplazo (talk) 10:31, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 12 January 2024

In the section Sport in Culture, remove the "will host" in the sentence "France has hosted events such as the 1938 and 1998 FIFA World Cups,[392] the 2007 Rugby World Cup,[393] and will host the 2023 Rugby World Cup." as the event has now happened. Okynok (talk) 12:30, 12 January 2024 (UTC)

 Done Largoplazo (talk) 12:55, 12 January 2024 (UTC)

Pronunciation in the wrong language.

Someone accidentally put the French pronunciation of France in the audio clip instead of the English pronunciation. 24.116.97.236 (talk) 18:08, 12 December 2023 (UTC)

I noticed the same thing in the Paris article. M.Bitton (talk) M.Bitton (talk) 18:15, 12 December 2023 (UTC)
MOS:LEADPRON says Do not include pronunciations for names of foreign countries whose pronunciations are well known in English (France, Poland). An HTML comment in the wikitext (citing a MOS page which doesn't exist) says Do not add English pronunciation, which may have been misinterpreted to mean add French pronunciation instead. I've boldly removed it. Certes (talk) 18:41, 12 December 2023 (UTC)
I'm not sure any of you really understood WP:MOSPRON before making those changes because the guidelines there only apply for providing English IPA's for articles like France and Poland. And I will mention that the French pronunciation for either France or Paris are certainly not commonly known in English, otherwise nearly everyone would have pronounced France and Paris the French language way. So I have boldly reverted the removal of French IPA & audio clips for both the France & Paris articles while keeping English IPA's excluded from them as per those finer details of WP:MOSPRON. Plus in any case, I think its both absurd & inappropriate to exclude the native French pronunciation when most Wikipedia articles feature the native language IPA's for many countries (e.g. Portugal, Belarus, Romania, Indonesia etc.) or capital cities (e.g. Berlin, Madrid, Amsterdam, Stockholm, Oslo etc.) - even though Poland was mentioned above in this topic, I will point out that the Polish name & IPA for the country is still there in the Poland article. Broman178 (talk) 21:36, 19 January 2024 (UTC)

Addition of length template

This edit by User:Nikkimaria adds a length template to this article. I don't understand the justification for the edit, which Nikkimaria does not elaborate in edit history. In order to improve this article, I'm asking for some guidance about what specifically needs to be improved rather than (→‎top: per talk), which Nikkimaria does not adress the situation. Since the length template's introduction, a number of editors have put effort into reducing unnecessary or lengthy information. When the template was introduced, the article had 294,548 bytes. When this talk discussion was created, it had a length of 274,105 bytes. However, reading the article now, many statements are not excessively long. Therefore, I'm at a loss as to why the length template would apply here, or what would need to be changed to justify removing it. Clarification would be appreciated, and absent any clarification I will WP:BEBOLD and remove it. Cleter (talk) 15:30, 24 January 2024 (UTC)

What do you mean by "many statements are not excessively long"? The tag isn't about the length of individual statements. Largoplazo (talk) 16:48, 24 January 2024 (UTC)
I'm just addressing the individual statements along with the rest of what is claimed to be a long article. Chill out. Cleter (talk) 17:40, 24 January 2024 (UTC)
I am also not sure what you mean by individual statements. If you mean individual sections, the History section is for example over 4,500 words. CMD (talk) 02:04, 25 January 2024 (UTC)
Agreed - Cleter, the previous discussion (now archived) offers some specific areas for improvement. Nikkimaria (talk) 02:11, 25 January 2024 (UTC)
Thank you for making it clear that the achieved discussion was settled, it is clear more bytes need to be removed. This discussion may come to a consensus to keep the template, should there be no objections. Cleter (talk) 03:12, 25 January 2024 (UTC)
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:France/Archive_7&oldid=1220537166"