Talk:France/Archive 1

message: What is the difference in the powers between the prime minister and the president in France?  Sorry, just curious.  --qbertsoul
: The President and the Prime Minister both embody the Executive branch of the State, but the President carries representational duties (as "the voice of France") and has the supreme authority over foreign relations. He is also the supreme chief of the armies.
: The Prime Minister is the highest administrator of everyday affairs.
: Usually, the President and the Prime Minister have similar political views (the Prime Minister is selected by the President), so their respective realms are not much of an issue. However, the President is elected by direct vote of the People, while the Prime Minister and his government depend on the majority at the Assembly (because the Assmebly can censor the government); since the Assembly and the President are not elected at the same time, it is possible that a majority opposing the views of the President be elected, forcing the choice of a Prime Minister opposing the President. Obvioulsy, in this configuration, the domains of competences are severely guarded. This is the "cohabitation", which happened thrice in the Vth Republic. Rama 9 July 2005 08:13 (UTC)
::See Government of France, President of France, Prime Minister of France. David.Monniaux 18:18, 18 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  France: Prime minister and the president 

message: There is still a problem with the correct area of France. The article currently says its ranked 47th in the list of countries by area. However, it is ranked 42th at the moment (the list also refers to Metropolitan France and the French Republic separately) and the areas given in both places are different. If this article is right then France would even be higher up in the ranking. Any authoritative source on this issue (maybe some french governmental website etc.)? The list says it refers to the CIA Factbook, but I did not check whether this is true. --Markus Krötzsch 15:36, 2 Oct 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: INSEE says  that the total surface of France is around 549,000 km² (543965 in Metropolitan France, the rest in oversea possessions). --David.Monniaux 10:09, 3 Oct 2004 (UTC)

text: Check the table at the beginning of the article about France. I put there the exact area of France, with footnote to what it refers to exactly. --Hardouin 00:30, 6 Nov 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Area of France 

message: Do the overseas collectives and the other small islands claimed by France belong to the EU? --AxelBoldt 10:39, 24 Sep 2003 (UTC)
replies: text: The oversea départements do, the oversea territories (New Caledonia, French Polynesia, TAAF) don't, and I don't know about the other ones. --David.Monniaux 20:03, 26 May 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Overseas territories 

message: It's not correct to state in the table that the currency of France is both the Euro and French euro coins respectively. One have to distinguish between a currency and legal tender. The currency of France is just the Euro. French euro coins, along with all other "national" euro coins are legal tender (in France and in the rest of euroland). Thus, if the table wants to give information about coins and banknotes having the status of legal tender, it is uncomplete (since in this case all other "national" coins have to be stated as well). If the table refers to the currency, it is just correct to mention Euro. --Gugganij 15:32, 19 Jun 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Currency of France 

message: I don't think we should care of what the Anglophones things which is good or not to eat... I never thought that many Anglophones are interesting under that point of view... :-) With all respect! 
PS: the Argot word to call an english is "Crustacée" because they are rigids, walking on the wrong sense and eating shit and corpses ! :-) so... ;-)
Someones Bitter
"Eating shit and corpses !"- What? The British Royal Navy is no longer a haven for cannibalism. We have that problem relatively under control.
another argot word to call an english is "Rosbeef". I don't know the origin of this term.
82.125.199.247 14:44, 26 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  About Anglophone tastes 

message: Wouldn't it be better to add a footnote which specifies where the CFA- and the CFP-Francs are used? Otherwise one might get the impression, that those are currencies which are also used in the mainland. --Gugganij 14:47, 11 Jul 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: CFA Franc is used nowhere in France. CFA Franc is the currency of a number of countries in Western and Central Africa (and is pegged to the Euro). CFP Franc is the currency of the French Pacific territories. --David.Monniaux 18:16, 13 Jul 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Thats's the problem I wanted to point at. --Gugganij 14:50, 30 Jul 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Currencies 

message: If you think there's an accuracy or POV problem in the "religion" section, please clearly state what you think is wrong and why on the talk page; merely glueing a "the following paragraph is dubious" label does not contribute much. --David.Monniaux 10:07, 15 Aug 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Religion 

message: Please don't overuse the definite articles le/la when citing French phrases (a common error of many  anglophones). One normally doesn't put le/la in front of an expression like France or République Française unless it is inside a sentence of its own. For instance, some official letterhead may start with République Française but will never start with La République Française. --David.Monniaux 09:27, 21 Nov 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Use of definite article 

message: How come this page says "This is cool. I can write on the page and no one will care." ??? but I can't find out where it was added. I tend to see such strange things after 'nuclear weapons' is mentioned on wikipedia.
: Hi. See Wikipedia:Welcome, newcomers. -- Infrogmation 03:59, 29 Nov 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  This is cool. I can write on the page and no one will care. 

message: I'm sick and tired the infobox being moved around. --David.Monniaux 09:00, 9 Jan 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Infobox 

message: What's with this lock? what are the editing disputes related to this lock? --Izwalito
:The infobox was being moved up and down and up and down. --David.Monniaux 18:53, 14 Jan 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I'd like to add  to the links to French language websites, but I can't do it while the article is locked.. --Zantastik 07:55, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Locked ? 

message: Whoever wrote the article, you forget to mention 'Marianne', which is the symbol of the French Republic. 
I got you a link with an actual picture... It's french though:
http://www.elysee.fr/instit/symb6.htm
"Marianne is the symbol of France since the constitution of 1958 made the Blue-White-Red flag official. She is a sign of Liberty"
:If you scroll down the page, there's a link to Marianne. We should perhaps make it more proeminent. --David.Monniaux 07:52, 12 Apr 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree. It's like having an article on the Netherlands without mentioning William of Orange. --Shinobu 16:32, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sign of France 

message: As one of the most important nations in the world (exery nation may have it's beauty and so on, but you know what i mean.), I think France's military should get an own section in the article. BTW, the main article on it is very messy. --Predator capitalism 18:55, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: You are welcome to improve it. --David.Monniaux 20:05, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Military of France]] 

message: What happened?? We all need to work together as a team to act more quickly a vandal starts messing with wikipedia articles. --nicksukh
:We had a string of vandalism coming from various educational networks, at some point. --David.Monniaux 05:08, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Cela suppose que nous puissions bannir toutes leurs adresses IP, ce qui n'est pas si simple, vu qu'ils interviennent visiblement depuis de nombreuses adresses à travers le monde (peut-être des machines infectées par un virus et faisant "open proxy"). David.Monniaux 16:12, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Vandalism 

message: I wonder whether the quoted figures include the budget of the Gendarmerie (which, for the vast majority of its missions, acts like a civilian police force and would not be counted into the military budgets of some other countries). David.Monniaux 16:49, 4 May 2005 
(UTC)
:In case you're referring to the figures that I posted on May 4th. I can't say whether they include the Gendarmerie. I quoted from the following article: EU's Fragmented Defense Market Thwarts Bid to Bolster Military. You can find the figures in about the 27th paragraph of the article. - Heimdal 10:03, 6 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Military spending 

message: I noticed while reading the article that many sentences were somehow trying to show France in a positive light by showing statistics about economics and nuclear power. I do not get that feeling while reading articles about United States, Japan or Germany. Maybe someone can help tidy up the article. Strangely even the article on India seems to suffer from the same problem. Is it got to do with an inner feeling of the people of nations truly great at some point in time? --coolmallu 22:45, 2005 May 4 (UTC)
:Since the article was largely written by non-French people, I don't quite see what you mean. All articles about countries are supposed to contain statistics and other quick information allowing the reader to quickly get an idea of the position the country on various aspects. David.Monniaux 06:37, 5 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: It may have been largely written by non-French people, but it is heavily edited and well-guarded by pro-French people.  I was surprised to see that the article on the United States has far less bias.  I am not American or French.  --Csnewton 21:47, 29 May 2005 (UTC)

text: "left" == "negative" ? I only read the article anyway, and I didn't see any negativity in it. → SeeSchloß 18:54, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Neutrality 

message: *Does anybody know where I could find a picture of a white flag? It would do wonders for my user page.Frenchman113 18:53, May 28, 2005 (UTC)
:: White flags were indeed used during the Monarchy, on ships of the lines (other ships used a flag with fleur-de-lys on white background). Your desire to honour the navy without which the American revolution would not have succeeded as it did is touching and commandable. Rama 10:01, 10 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  White Flags 

message: Someone needs to revise the part about the referendum on the European Constitution. The French people rejected it. -Amit
:I see an edit war coming upon this article with the no vote at the French referendum. We better be cautious. At this point, nobody knows what the no vote means really, and what the future will be. We do not have enough perspective to say what the consequences of the no will be, therefore it is better to only briefly mention it for the moment, and wait and see. To start editing the article and saying that France is no more a leading country in the EU just because the French opposed that particular constitutional treaty of the EU is totally absurd. Hardouin 01:34, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I fail to see what you mean. Since Sunday there have been already many edits and reverting about the referendum, done by many users, and I just intervened yesterday (Wednesday) to remove some totally out of context ranting about Russia and Chechnya. Libeling people is not really a good way to advance the discussion. Hardouin 11:39, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  About Referendum on Constitution 

message: I removed the following paragraph:
:No other country in the history of the world has lost and regained its territory so many times.  Some would say that this is due to France's military might, some would argue the link opposite.
Can the first sentence be backed up with any sort of facts? If we set aside for a moment the issue of what it means for a country to lose and then regain territory, there are several other locations that could legitimately lay claim to the distinction -- for example, Poland, Israel, Egypt, and parts of the former USSR; it all depends on how you count it. The definition of such is too messy and subjective to be put into an encyclopedia. Andrew Levine 23:18, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Lost/Regained Territory 

message: In the Bastille article, it says that the Fête de la Fédération was a celebration of Bastille Day. If this was the case, it makes more sense to regard the July 14 holiday as a celebration of Bastille Day than a celebration of its first anniversary!
Either way one of the articles needs altering.
:The 14th of July is a commemoration of the Fête de la Fédération, period. The Fête de la Fédération is a symbol of the unity of France, when representatives from all provinces declared their desire to form a united Nation. The 14th of July was made the National Holiday of France in the 1880s, after Germany had annexed Alsace-Lorraine from France in 1871, and it was purposely chosen as the National Holiday to strengthen the unity of the country, and also to make it clear that Alsace-Lorraine were French, because the representatives of Alsace-Lorraine had freely joined the French Nation at the Fête de la Fédération. Hardouin 00:06, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  This question was also asked a number of times on the article Bastille Day, eventually prompting the creation of the Fête de la Fédération article; I think that the importance of this little-known event is better underlined there, and it seems that it becomes easier to understand why the 14th of July should commemorate this event. Rama 08:25, 29 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Fête de la Fédération/Bastille Day 

message: I've started making this Wikipedia:Wikiportal/France wikiportal thing. I have no idea how to draw tables and pretty things like that, so if someone can gimme a push forward, and collaborate with me on it, I'd appreciate it --Expurgator t(c) 23:33, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  France portal 

message: Should be shortened and only mention the 26 regions - a reference to the full list would suffice. Longs lists never positively contribute to a good article. Themanwithoutapast 00:01, 22 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Administrative divisions 

message: The article Napoleonic Wars has been listed to be improved on Wikipedia:This week's improvement drive. To support the article, you can add your vote there.--Fenice 08:03, 5 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Improvement Drive 

message: I noticed while browsing about some Wikipedia statistics pages that this article appears on a 100 most accessed articles statistics page as #100. (accessed August 27, 2005) Courtland 16:12, 27 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  100 most accessed articles 

message: The IP address 216.229.18.122 appears to have only been used to vandalise articles about France, starting in March 2005. Is it possible to get this IP # on a block list (I'm ignorant of how that might be done and whether it would be approved). Courtland 21:54, 29 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Blocked for 14 hours. Rama 22:00, 29 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Vandalism March 2005 to August 2005 

message: There was an edit that carried the comment "Fixing overlapping images. This article needs a lot of work."  Overlapping images?  Not in my browser (Firefox 1.0.4) and not using the MonoBook (default) skin.  I'm curious if others feel this article needs a tremendous amount of work or not from a formatting perspective. Courtland 00:18, 3 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Actually... it looked fine here with Konqueror 3.4.1 before the change (), but now the sunflowers picture is overlapping the text (). → SeeSchloß 17:17, 3 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  overlapping images? 

message: Hello! I've started translating the English article in a foreign Wikipedia & I was wondering about the meaning of this phrase from the history section: "The eastern part (which would soon unite with the central portion as the Holy Roman Empire) can be regarded the beginnings of what is now Germany, the western part that of France." Isn't something missing from this phrase? Thanks! --Vlad 21:59, 20 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: What is lacking is a comma. "The eastern part (which would soon unite with the central portion as the Holy Roman Empire) can be regarded the beginnings of what is now Germany, the western part *,* that of France." Rama 07:05, 21 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Question 

message: The info-box mentions French[1] as the language:
1 See [Languages section] for regional languages
The link doesn't work! Isto Ylisirkka 20:00, 22 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm quite sure I originally set the link to #Demographics, but it must have changed at some point. I corrected it, but maybe we need a new Languages section ? → SeeSchloß 21:13, 22 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I solved the problem by restoring the languages section which an anonymous user had deleted. Hardouin 11:07, 23 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Missing languages section 

message: This article is very far from the FA status.  Many things have to be done:
# reduce the length to 30-35 KB
# remove too many info that are better fitted in daughter articles (e.g. table about the languages, story of the name, etc..)
# remove all the lists and replace them with prose (in particular culture section is very poorly written
In this aim I have tried to strongly edit the article.  Many things I did have been reversed.  I'll try to do this once again.  I hope it will be more successful this time.  Compare with FA like South Africa, Nepal, India, Hong Kong or People's Republic of China to see what should be a kind of aim. Vb 19:36, 23 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Recent FA have been far from 30-35kb. Indeed, some have been 69kb or more. --Bob 22:57, 25 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: No FA about countries!  France doesn't need more place than any other country!  Moreover if someone would expand for example culture as it should, you jump very fast over the 69KB record! In such a case I wouldn't be the only one to oppose a nomination.  Vb 13:15, 26 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I tend to agree (without looking at FA history) that Featured Articles on countries are not that good of an idea.  I wouldn't go so far as to exclaim as User:Vb has, nor would I suggest we should conspire to make the article unsuitable by bloating the size ... that solves absolutely nothing.  I would rather see Featured Articles on things that have not been well addressed elsewhere as a concept in toto, acknowledging that aspects of any country article here will expand on things not related anywhere else. Encouraging country articles as Featured Articles is an invitation to skew the content almost completely over into that domain as once France is the subject, next it will the the United States, then Germany, India, Brazil ... you get the idea.  Something I should likely suggest over at the FA pages is that a "country FA" be considered separate from the general FA.  This would provide a forum for the establishment (eventually) of all country articles to Featured Article status, which I think would be a good idea as a matter of quality and scope. Courtland 19:02, 30 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Making France closer to Featured Article status 

message: The section predicting the population of France in 2050 seems misleading. The figures quoted are from a single report and contradict others made by the French government and other organisations. If this section is to remain, I think it needs to clarify this, perhaps with other estimates. Maybe just remove it altogether since it comes across as fairly pro-French?
Population data from Geohive
Eurostat predictions
UK National Office of Statistics Projection
83.67.205.202 23:23, 12 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: If you care to re-read the 2050 forecast more in detail, you would notice that this prediction is new, based on recent returns from the 2004 French census, which show a much higher fertility rate in France than previously anticipated. It is therefore not surprising that all other predictions that you have read are different, because they are older, from before the 2004 census, when fertility rate in France was thought to be much lower. Hardouin 01:21, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Population figures 2050 

message: Hi ALL! I have read the article. but I have not seen any reference to genocides which have been committed by France aganist Algerians and other african nations. Does it not a mistake?
: Genocide ? Rama 12:08, 27 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: No. Rama 20:23, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

text: No, because a genocide is a deliberate attempt at whipping out a whole population. No such thing happened in Algeria, where the local population was basically seen as a natural ressource. Rama 08:09, 28 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I guess that Arabic Algerians could be accused of genocide as well then, being that they partook in mass killing of white French people and Kabyles. Also, nowhere in the US article does it mention genocide of the Indians, nor does it state that in the British article...--Bob 19:53, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

text: And the biggest part of the Algerians killed (nearest from 500.000 than 1.500.000) were killed in slaughters between rivals independantist groups like MNA and FLN. Felipeh 00:34, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Genocide?? 

message: Should Gallia really directly get routed here to France? This makes it really hard to add historical data about the Roman province (data which is maybe a bit out of place here). Note also that afaik the only connection is a rough overlap with the area, since most of the tribes migrated in the migrations after the Romans. (when the Francs arrived that gave France its name), and the earliest I can think of a "France" is after the Treaty of Verdun when the larger Charlemanic Franconian Empire is split up in the kernels of France and Germany with Lotharia inbetween.
Also large parts of the northeast parts of France belonged to the Germania provinces, and probably all other borders are also not as clear cut.
84.35.55.47 19:25, 29 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Gallia redirection to this page 

message: What is the source for the GDP and trade rankings shown in the article?:
:Total GDP, 2004: 5th (out of 184) (World Bank data) 
:Total value of foreign trade (imports and exports), 2002: 4th (out of 185) 
-- that "World Bank data" cite shown in the article doesn't offer much. CIA World Factbook puts France at 7th in GDP, as of 2004:
:https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/fr.html#Econ
-- and I expect France is lower than 4th in foreign trade value, as well. No particular axe to grind for CIA, but such stats do need some form of citation. No axe to grind for or against the French, either: 7th & 4th ain't bad -- but best to be accurate, here...
--Kessler 15:24, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Sorry, but wrong expectations. The figures in the article are true. GDP figure comes from here. Foreign trade figure comes from here(table I.5, add exporters column and importers column). The CIA Factbook is a very bad reference, their figures are often wrong, not just for France. Hardouin 13:26, 12 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  datasource for GDP and trade rankings? 

message: What happened to the formatting of the infobox?? OhnoitsJamieTalk 20:20, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Forget it, just a stray newline. OhnoitsJamieTalk 20:34, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Infobox 

message: Should French Guiana and other Région d'outre-mers be included on the map of France Fabhcún 14:28, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Obviously, they are integrated parts of the Republic. Rama 15:25, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: You may add them, but then good luck to the person trying to show metropolitan France and all the French overseas départements and territories on the same infobox map. Technically very hard I'd say. Hardouin 23:01, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: DOM's should be added, TOM's, no. --Bob 22:05, 23 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  French Guiana 

message: No mention that the cock (chicken) is a widely recognised French emblem Jonto 12:02, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Cockerel 

message: This phrase "France is also the second most productive country in the OECD (excluding Norway and Luxembourg where productivity data are inflated by oil revenues in Norway, and by investments in off-shore banks in Luxembourg)." sounds somewhat apologetic and therefore really strange. It's like saying "Well yeah, I won the race (excluding the two guys in front of me who were faster, but they had better shoes". I suggest to revise it "France is also ranked as the fourth productive country in the OECD".  
Any comments? SignumPolis 15:18, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Please do me a favor and stop accusing me of being a French-hater, OK? I like the French even if I don't kiss them twice per day. I love France even so much that I want this article to be a really good one which implies that it needs to be more balanced and not artificially inflated (which compromises its credibility). Norway is not the only country making money with oil and Luxembourg not the only one having banks. What about the famous bank accounts in Switzerland ? I agree with Fightindaman. Two additional points: lots of things in the article sound really Franglais and the DOM/TOM's don't exist anymore, there are now called ROM's except of the TAAF (they had an administrative reform some time ago, but that might be addressed elsewhere, if I touch it now - without Aquarelles explicit orders - he/she will nuke me ...) SignumPolis 03:40, 3 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Here are the original data:  http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/31/7/29880166.pdf. They are based on the OECD estimation 2004. Look at table 1 column 8 (GDP per hour worked in this report). The numbers are indexed to the good ol' USA (which is 100). The ranking is: 1) Norway 122, 2) Luxembourg 121, 3) Belgium 110, 4) France 103, 5) Ireland 102. I don;t see a huge skewing here, the numbers are really close and I feel the data should be presented as they are.   SignumPolis 04:07, 3 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Ranking 

message: How does France have a border with the netherlands? -- Astrokey44|talk 05:10, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It doesn't... T/wangi 10:09, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

text: Was somebody thinking about French Guiana and it's borders with Brazil and Suriname (formally Dutch Guiana)? In any case it's not really something for the lead... Thanks/wangi 10:14, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The Netherlands border is referring to the island of Saint Martin which is in the Antilles. The French part is under the jurisdiction of Guadaloupe, which is a fully fledged department of France. The dutch part is in the Netherlands Antilles, and hence not actually part of the Netherlands proper. Personally I think that as long as one clarifies what one's talking about, it's legitimate to include a reference to the borders in the overseas departments in the introduction as they are no less a part of France than Northern Ireland is a part of the UK. The French article about France mentions them in the same breath, anyway. --Steverwanda 10:55, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

text: I have edited it to be more specific - Netherlands Antilles rather than Netherlands, which is misleading. wangi 14:10, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Netherlands? 

message: The introduction to this article states that France has a Land Border with the UK under the channel tunnel. Although there is a white line marking the divide between the two countries, most people would not consider this a land border, as it is under the sea (and hence not land!). The UK article makes no mention of this 'border' and most other sources (example: [CIA world fact book UK page]) regard the UK as having one border only, with the Republic of Ireland.  -- Steverwanda 10:25, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Land Border" with UK? 

message: This section is by far too long, too wordy and full of information that are not relevant for a general article about a county. It should be considerably condensed. SignumPolis 05:46, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Terminology section - too long 

message: It is not an ugly place - however, the phrase as it is, is clearly POV and should be revised. Every time I ask my friends from Paris: 9/10 consider it too crowded, too expensive and too stressful to live in: Metro-boulot-dodo. SignumPolis 05:46, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  In my opinion, user SignumPolis needs to find a hobby other than debasing this article.  --Aquarelle 19:40, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  My hobby is de-POVing the article about France and enjoying your contributions. Honestly: this phrase sounds like a paragraph from a Parisian tourism pamphlet. English Wikipedia deserves better SignumPolis 23:19, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I have no problem with Paris' beauty. Saying that it is considered "as one of the world's most beautiful cities" is POV and sounds like an ad and is inappropriate for the pupose of an article. I still think the riots should be montioned. They were the #1 topic in the news worldwide in fall last year and people do want want to read about it in an article about France. If you have newer numbers they should be included. Especially interesting is that they started in/near Paris so we have a nice contrast to the beauty of the tourist destination which renders this article more neutral (and credible). 69.251.183.138 02:57, 8 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: No, no, no, you are mistaken.  It is a fact that Paris is considered my many people to be one of the most beautiful cities in the world.  This is not the opinion of the author.  Newer numbers ?  Yes, of course, visit any major news corporation's website, read the report by the French police, or go to the Wiki article about the 2005 social unrest.  And lastly, I completely disagree with your statement that the riots counter Paris' beauty.  That's completely ridiculous.  When we talk about the beauty of Paris, we aren't talking about the suburbs, many which are known by French people for their violence.  It's just not accurate to put this information together in order to make a contrast.  If people want to read about the riots, they have a whole article to read about it on 2005 civil unrest in France.  --Aquarelle 03:22, 8 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  I really wonder if those who say that have really seen so many and are able to compare. Sometimes the horizon is a relative entity. BTW, many cities are considered to be among the most beautiful in the world. I don't like the "of the world" thing. It sounds very stereotypic. We can say that Paris is considered a beautiful city and popular tourist destination, and the 2005 riots were triggered in its suburbs and add the link to the riot article. This is more neutral. Any objection?  SignumPolis 18:03, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

text: Nah, it's San Francisco... hands down... Pujols may be OK, but for something really stunning you need to see a San Francisco sunset. Good wine in both places, and it ages well in both. Us poor little 'mericans who ain't got no culture or history, give us our sunsets... :-) Serious suggestion: Why not just say of Paris "known as 'the city of light'" & be done with it? That's what they do in Paris. --Kessler 18:28, 26 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Paris - most beautiful city ??? 

message: I see someone replaced France infobox with a more standard country infobox. I thought this had already been debated and the agreement was that we don't need the standard infobox, as long as France infobox respects the style of the standard infobox. France is not the only country in that case. A lot of information is lost with the standard infobox, and the conclusion of the debate was that there's no need to standardize everything. So I am restoring France infobox in the article. Also please note for the zillionth time that figures from the CIA World Factbook are INACCURATE, and only official French figures should be used. Hardouin 01:16, 23 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Infobox 

message: I don't quite understand the sentence;
"In some of its overseas parts, France also shares land borders with Brazil, Suriname, and the Netherlands Antilles."
France had Brazil as colony for a short period of time, and Suriname and the Netherlands Antilles were dutch colonies. The latter is a bunch of islands, that don't have land borders.
Or is it alluding to French Guiana, sharing a land border with Brazil and Suriname? If it is, then that seems incorrect. France doesn't share a border, one of its colonies does.
Sclozza 04:57, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It is indeed alluding to the border between French Guiana and Brazil, and French Guiana is not a colony but an actual part of France or more precisely an oversea department, with the same administrative organisation as mainland department, every citizen in French Guiana has the same rights than their French metropolitan counterpats and they elect representative in both chambers of the parliement. Considering French Guiana as a colonay is like if you were considering Tasmania as an Australian colony. In addition the Island of St Martin or Sint Marteen is shared between Netherlands and France therefore the land border between France and the Netherlands. Blastwizard 12:12, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Land borders 

message: It should be noted that the denotation of France in German (Frankreich) is by no means an unusual one, but in fact quite common among non-english speaking countries, in spite of what was previously implied under Origin of the country's name. I edited this, and my edits were without any reasonable reason reverted by Instantnood, back to the earlier and ambigious version. Yet, the fact stands, the German denotation of France is not in itself an unusual one. Therefore I have decided to re-insert my edit, since the information is otherwise put in an ambigious way, it implies that the German denotation of France is an unusual or noticable one. We either put it in a way that states that this denotation of France is still quite common, or we leave it out completely. Otherwise, it will be ambigious. Please, feel free to change my (or anyone else's) edits, but do it in a careful and responsible manner. It is easy, maybe too easy, to revert back to an earlier version, but we should not revert unless all changes must be undone. Reverting is primarily a way to fight vandalism. Take some time to rewrite instead of reverting. Thank you. /Magore 22:03, 30 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Origin of the name of France