I was going to argue France has been multi-ethnic ( but mono-racial ) since its ''continental expansion'', but it has been one of the most agressive with its assimilationist policies aiming for a single French culture. So in practice, the picture features Paris, the cultural center of that homonegized nation-building France.
It had largely succeeded in elimination familial transmission of indigenous European languages from the cities by 1900, and in rural areas by 1920-1950 ( some places even a couple decades earlier ).
Few exceptions being a couple Alpine Occitan towns, and Alemanic still in general use in rural areas untill around 1970. Which means today, native and fluent speakers are mostly older adults or elderly people ( near extinction ).
Basque in rural areas still has an important minority of families speaking it today ( 20%? ) and bilingual education is very popular in most of Northern Basque Country, at least in rural areas.
I was going to argue France has been multi-ethnic since its ''continental expansion'', but it has been one of the most agressive with its assimilationist policies aiming for a single French culture. So in practice, the picture features Paris, the cultural center of that homonegized nation-building France.
It had largely succeeded in elimination familial transmission of indigenous European languages from the cities by 1900, and in rural areas by 1920-1950 ( some places even a couple decades earlier ).
Few exceptions being a couple Alpine Occitan towns, and Alemanic still in general use in rural areas untill around 1970. Which means today, native and fluent speakers are mostly older adults or elderly people ( near extinction ).
Basque in rural areas still has an important minority of families speaking it today ( 20%? ) and bilingual education is very popular in most of Northern Basque Country, at least in rural areas.
I was going to argue France has been multi-ethnic since its ''continental expansion'', but it has been one of the most agressive with its assimilationist policies aiming for a single French culture. So in practice, the picture features Paris, the cultural center of that homonegized nation-building France.
It had largely succeeded in elimination familial transmission of indigenous European languages from the cities by 1900, and in rural areas by 1920-1950 ( some places even a couple decades earlier ).
Few exceptions being a couple Alpine Occitan towns, and Alemanic still in general use in rural areas untill around 1970. Which means today, fluent speakers are mostly older adults or elderly people ( near extinction ).
Basque in rural areas still has an important minority of families speaking it today ( 20%? ) and bilingual education is very popular in most of Northern Basque Country, at least in rural areas.
I was going to argue France has been multi-ethnic since its ''continental expansion'', but it has been one of the most agressive with its assimilationist policies aiming for a single French culture. So in practice, the picture features Paris, the cultural center of that homonegized nation-building France.
It had largely succeeded in elimination familial transmission of indigenous European languages from the cities by 1900, and in rural areas by 1920-1950 ( some places even a couple decades earlier ).
Few exceptions being a couple Alpine Occitan towns, and Alemanic still in general use in rural areas untill around 1970. Which means today, fluent speakers are mostly older adults or elderly people.
Basque in rural areas still has an important minority of families speaking it today ( 20%? ) and bilingual education is very popular in most of Northern Basque Country, at least in rural areas.