Talk:List of French people

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I think Erik Satie should be moved into the main list... Gerald T.

I think the four of them should be moved into the main list...

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About the Not as Famous as They Deserve: list, I think Wikipedia shouldn't decide what people deserve. It's not entirely NPOV. --Ellmist Sunday, September 1st, 2002

Do you mean "it's entirely not NPOV"?  ;-) --KQ 17:39 Sep 1, 2002 (PDT)

It should be 'Other Notable French People' Firesun 18:20, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

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Is someone volunteer to put this alphabetical order ?

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Jean-Jacques Rousseau Swiss or French ? --- could put him in both places I guess

he born french and swiss but he "cancelled" the swiss nationality in 1763

--- Alain Lipietz famous is it serious ?

unless you want to go back to the previous list, with famous, and not as famous people, yes it is serious éric...

In insist for me Alain Lipietz is some obscure ecologist politician much less famous than René Dumont for instance, unless if he has some international fame for some reason I ignore (please explain me ?) it has nothing to on list where George Pompidou, Pierre Mendes-France, George Clemenceau are absents even daniel Cohn-Bendit or Charles Pasqua seems much more famous to me.... 62.212.103.37 22:14 Sep 13, 2002 (UTC)~

or we'll need to create another page for other french people that do not have the chance to be on the list of famous people.

I will add myself to rhe list that's a quick and easy way to become famous :-) Ericd 00:26 Sep 14, 2002 (UTC)

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If there's really something I strongly disagree with, it's rather the classification which is imposing view to the reader. Given the title of the page, these people are here because of their fame.

Let's consider Montant ! Montant is a singer. What ? Just a singer ? Montant was much much more than a singer. He was also an actor, he also was pretty involved in politics. Not only a singer. And he was famous for other reasons than just being a singer.

Or consider Bardot. An actor and that's it ? Ouh, I guess she was famous for other reasons than this one...

Most great scientists in the past were also philosophers, frequently involved in politics. Where would you put Rousseau exactly ?

I understand the need for classification otherwise this page will get messy, but there are so other ways to classify with a more neutral angle of view than just classifying people that way. What about time distinction, decades of birth dates or something similar ?

user:anthere

I think division by what they did is more useful than division by when they did it - I can imagine somebody coming here to try and remember the name of a particular French novelist, but I can't imagine anybody coming here to remember the name of a certain French person born in the 1860s. Also, I think that generally speaking a list of famous French novelists will be of more interest than a list of famous French people born in any one particular decade.

Most people are only famous for one thing, so there's no problem there. If they're famous for more than one thing, just put them under more than one division. If they're famous for one thing, but dabbled in others for which they're not famous, just list them under what they're famous for.

Division in this way also makes it easier to split the page up later on if necessary (into List of French composers, List of French philosophers and so on). --Camembert

Not only division was added but also description where reduced by someone. Reducing Beaumarchais to a comedy playwright isn't justice. Is litterary works very small four or five comedy (but two masterpieces). brigitte Bardot is at least actress, singer, sex symbol, and animal rights activist Imagine Ronald Reagan - Actor don't you feel something lacks ? Ericd 23:35 Sep 13, 2002 (UTC)

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I started the division because it had been done that way on the List of famous Germans. I was hoping to list some of them in more than one category.

Would that solve it??

User:Renata

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you mean putting some of them in 4 different categories ? 4 times the name on the same page ? weird, but why not. Particularly if we separate them later on. okay.

I definitely think putting people in more than one category if they're famous for more than one thing is the way to go. It might be good to put a note on the page along the lines of "People famous for their work in more than one category are listed in all of them", so that people who might work on the page later know it's OK to have a person on the page twice. I can't do any of the editing myself, by the way - I just don't know enough about most of these people. Good luck to those who are going to work on it! --Camembert

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I'm happy to do the editing, but I only want to do it if it doesn't upset people. If everyone feels okay about the multiple entry idea, please say so. Until then I will add names from the France search. That way, I'm adding people for whom articles exist already. User:Renata

This is just my opinion, but I think that people looking at this article will not be looking under what the person is famous for - I think it's more likely they will be looking under the name, and then it may be helpful to know what the person is famous for. I'd prefer just to see it alphabetically arranged. Deb

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We could have both, I suppose......

User:Renata

I wouldn't think people are going to come to this page looking for a particular person if they already know their name - in that case, they would just use the search box. Even if this article is the only place a particular person is mentioned on the wiki, somebody looking to find out what they did can use their browsers "find in page" function. So to be honest, I don't see any value in an alphabetical list. They're more likely to come here to jog their memory remembering the name of a particular novelist they can't quite bring to mind for the moment, or to get an overview of French philosophers, or something like that. In those cases, a list arranged by vocation is far more useful. I would regard an alphabetical list as a waste of time (which is why I'm gradually phasing out the one at composer). --Camembert

But you already have "List of novelists", "List of philosophers", etc, which are all arranged by country, so in a way you are indexing twice on the same thing. What I meant was that someone might know the name of a French person and not know what they were famous for, and might look them up under "List of famous French people". A lot of the names on the list don't already have articles of their own, so someone searching the wikipedia would find them under the list when they can't find a main article for them. But I suppose it's true that they would find them one way or another in the end. -- Deb

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What do you think about classifying Jeanne d'Arc -- (Joan of Arc) in Resustance Workers ?

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I would like to know *who* decide of the amount of fame necessary to add someone to this page ? How do we measure fame ??? Is it fame in the US, fame in england ? fame in france ? fame in the world ? Is it relative to the number of non-french people able to say "yes, I already heard about that guy ?" or is it relative to the number of people *from a given field of expertise* knowing about the guy
I think that it is an important issue somehow. As a french, I have never heard (or very little, even if I know the name, I would not be able to say anything about some of the guys listed here) about Paul Dukas, Christian Pineau, Violette Szabo, Emilie du Chatelet, Maurice Duverger, Marcel Duchamp, Christine de Pizan, Eugene Viollet-le-Duc.
I am pleased to discover my being so ignorant. But, I presume these one are famous for *some* people; so I will not remove them by myself, even if I could say "these people famous. Is that a joke ???"
Fame is very relative, not absolute. For people of my profession and field of expertise, people as Alain Lipietz, Jean-Marie Pelt. Marcel Mozoyer, Theodore Monod are people important and famous; And we believe them famous as we know of non-french people know them.
So I would like, Eric, this issue to be settled. I don't intend to remove any names from that list, even though some I think may not deserve to be there as their fame as you stated is no where near the fame of Voltaire of Napoleon, but I see not why the names I propose would be removed by you so casually.
So, I propose, either that you accept these names to be there, or that we add something like a "not as famous as the other". I'll put some stubs about these guys. Please answer here before removing anybody, 'cause I'll put them back anyway. Thanks user:anthere

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I think this list is coming on very nicely! I like the division of the "Artists". Perhaps we should make divisions in "Scientists" too, perhaps in others as well.

I agree with user:anthere that there should be no deletion of names for the time being. Let's see first how the List shapes up. Like Anthere, I'm happy to add stubs or even articles on the people who haven't got pages.

Rather than arguing over the meaning of "famous", perhaps we should take the wider view and assume that someone, sometime will want info on the "not so famous". This was brought to mind earlier this year when one of my French A Level students wrote a long essay contrasting Simone de Beauvoir and Gisèle Halimi. Until then I knew very little about Halimi, but I think she should be on the "famous" list for her courage. What do you think, anthere and éric??

I won't have any trouble agreeing on the points about which you decided to agree with me :-)
Seriously, the list grew so much this week end, that the division by category is inavoidable and sould proceed further. I like very much the idea of a list of french and french speaking, easier to find than the search function. There are often spelling mistakes over names. But truely, this is no more a famous people list. However the word famous help english people to find the page, so...
I'm sorry but I never heard of Halimi; so I'll be glad if you put a stub on her..user:anthere

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To whoever removed Lully on grounds of him being Italian - it's true that he was born in Italy (Florence, I think), but he was taken to France at the age of 14 and spent the rest of his life there working in the French court. Stylistically, he is very French and definitely not Italian. I doubt very much that any musical dictionary or general encyclopaedia would put him under a list of Italians, so it makes sense to put him in a list of French people. One either sees him described as "French-Italian" or simply "French" but not "Italian." I'm going to replace him. --Camembert

I see that Lully has been removed again with not even an attempt at explanation - I'm going to assume this was an edit conflict and just put him back again. I've now edited the Jean Baptiste Lully article and it should be clear from that that he qualifies as French. --Camembert

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Hello,

IMHO, Jean-Jacques Rousseau was born and remained Swiss.

Bye

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How can Bertrand Russel(l) be French?
S.

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IMHO there is still no biographical evidence that Lully became French. If soeone has reference this could be usefull. Léo Ferret is also "very french" but he was Monegasque.

Lully took French citizenship in 1661, having spent most of his life there. --Camembert

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According to the Larousse Encyclopedia Lully was French. For Rousseau they prefer to avoid the question hee was french-speaking that's all. IMHO he was Swiss. 62.212.103.37 18:35 Sep 16, 2002 (UTC)

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Jean-Luc Godard is Swiss that's more certain than Rousseau.

Jean-Luc Godard was born in Paris. He got Swiss citizenship in the 1940s, but he has lived in both Switzerland and France since World War II.

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Johnny Hallyday Belge ?

Yes. FvdP 21:51 Nov 16, 2002 (UTC)

He was born in Paris, but apparently his parents were Belgian. KS

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Why the hell is a list of french people so high on the popularity list?

Because that are so great, soo fantastic, sooo fabulous, soooo loved and so hatred... ;) --Ann O'nyme 15:59, 31 Aug 2003 (UTC)

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Source for Mary Pierce being Canadian born? --Ann O'nyme 15:59, 31 Aug 2003 (UTC)

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Do you like the Fictional characters section I just created? --Ann O'nyme 15:59, 31 Aug 2003 (UTC)

I may be wrong Ann, but I have a vague recollection of a discussion on that topic, which ended saying we should not do. But I really have no certainty. Might be worth checking whether it is done or not on other similar lists perhaps. Otherwise, some accents are lacking (obélix, astérix, idéfix...). Ant

As it is written, Tintin and Hercules Poirot are from Belgium and are not french. Why are they here?--212.234.218.193 12:38, 5 Jul 2004 (UTC)

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We need more economists. --Ann O'nyme 16:00, 31 Aug 2003 (UTC)

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Is Claude Francois considered French? He seemed to be famous in France in the 1970s but he's nowhere mentioned in wikipedia. Born in Egypt of mixed parents but patriated to France. Bigraphy here: http://www.rfimusique.com/siteEn/biographie/biographie_6147.asp

French people consider him french in any cases :-) Btw...he is still famous, even if dead for a good while now. fr0069

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Abbreviations

Can someone explain on the "article page" what means o.p. and s.j. or remove them? These abbreviations are used in the section theologians, at least. Thanks. --Eleassar777 09:34, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Why is this title so vague?

This is a disgrace, it should be named "List of famous French people," or something of that sort, not just List of French people, unless you want to add everyone in France to the list. It seems this title only remains as a curiosity.I--Zxcvbnm 00:42, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

• I agree --IvanKnight69 03:35, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

French ethnic origins?

I don't like the bit "persons of French ethnic origins" in the intro. There are quite a few people in the list who are or were not "ethnic French", unless you define ethnicity so broadly that it becomes meaningless. I'd rather use a citizenship or birth criterion than this vague and controversial notion of ethnicity. Karl Stas 21:41, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

You could call it notable French people perhaps, which is vague enough to include people who aren't household names the world over, but doesn't imply listing the entire population of France. 203.211.89.12 (talk) 12:40, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

In the List?

• Claude Helffer
• see also Talk:List of French Jews

--Sheynhertz_געשׁ״ך 04:03, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

Two completely different things

First, somebody put Stephen Colbert down as a French philosopher. It can be presumed that, once they learn that I deleted him from the list, they will put him back up, so be on the lookout. (By the way, Stephen Colbert is of Irish descent according to his page, so he doesn't qualify for this page anyways.) Second, I wanted to put Louis Claude de Saint-Martin on the list, but wasn't sure whether he would be alphabetized under "Saint" or "Martin." In addition to putting him on the list in the appropriate place, somebody should probably organize this talk page so that new readers (such as myself) can look through it efficiently to determine whether one of our questions has been asked before. Feo takahari 23:30, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Feedback from a random user.

Hi, I can't contribute much, but as someone who came across the page, I thought I'd let you know how it might help me, and that might help with some of the above debates. I'm an English mathematician, and I came here looking for famous French 20th century mathematicians, of which there are surprisingly few (I'd always thought that if you went to Paris and through a stick in the air, then you'd probably hit a famous mathematician with it, if you didn't hit a famous artist first). I can't think of that many off the top of my head (although Henri Cartan springs to mind, and he's been missed out, and he's already got a wikipedia entry), that's why I came here, so time frame is of interest to me. Also I can imagine someone wanting to get a feel for what, say, 17th century French intellectual life was like, and so knowing dates would be useful. Perhaps if you don't want to list people in chronological order then at least try to put their birth/death dates after the names. I also think that 'famous within their field' should be included, how many non-mathematicians have heard of Rene Thom or even the mighty Poincarre? but both of these should definitely be (and in fact are) on the list. By the way, to the person above, who'd never heard of Marcel DuChamp, I'm frankly quite amazed. I don't know that much about art, but I've heard of him. He put a urinal on display in an art gallery, and painted "nude descending a staircase" amongst other things. I believe he was trying to show something from many different perspectives at once, but I don't really understand. Certainly I'd always thought of him as a 'famous artist'. Hope this helps,

Stevie H —Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.74.217.195 (talk) 14:59, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for commenting here. I think listing things chronologically would be useful for certain fields - someone looking for a 1990s actor wouldn't be interested in a 1920s one and vice versa. This article gets a lot of vandalism and well-meaning but unhelpful edits, so maintaining it has been a challenge sometimes, let alone improving it. There is a category for French people and one for French mathematicians, but none of these appear to be sorted chronologically. There is a tool, Cat Scan which finds intersections between categories. Here is a query for 20th century births and French mathematicians, as an example. It's loading as I speak ... Graham87 15:37, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

Please do not delete navigation lists

I noticed a prod was placed on List of French people. Lists comprise one of Wikipedia's parallel navigation systems. The redundancy and co-existence of our nav systems is explained and encouraged in Wikipedia:Categories, lists, and navigation templates, and they are all part of Wikipedia's overall contents system.

The Lists of people make up a huge branch of Wikipedia's list system. List of French people belongs to that set. Please don't delete it.

The Transhumanist 21:44, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

Yann Tiersen

I think Yann Tiersen should be added to the musician list. He's very notable, at least as a soundtrack composer if nothing else.

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— Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.41.43.82 (talk) 22:20, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

Done. Thanks for the suggestion. Graham87 00:49, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

Is this list actually helpful?

I'm wondering if this list is actually helpful. The title seems too vague to be of any real use to anyone. All these people should be in their relevant categories - I'm not convinced that we need an article listing every French person on Wikipedia. I would normally suggest the improvement of an article, but this seem to vague to be improved. I'd be interested to hear feedback. ItsZippy ^{(talk • contributions)} 20:04, 29 September 2011 (UTC)

I basically agree with you; the list isn't really that useful. I only became interested in this page because of a rather strange technical issue that I found with it in December 2007, and have had it on my watchlist ever since. But it was created long before categories were implemented in Wikipedia, and there are plenty of other lists like it. Graham87 02:37, 30 September 2011 (UTC)

Ah, thanks for letting me know. There do seem to be a lot of similar pages, very few of which I think are helpful. I was going to nominate this for AfD; however, as there are so many, it might be worth seeing if there is consensus to take collective action. I'll start a discussion on the category talk page. ItsZippy ^{(talk • contributions)} 10:57, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

I've started an RfC discussion at the category talk page. ItsZippy ^{(talk • contributions)} 11:04, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

"Notable French" listed at Redirects for discussion

An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Notable French. Please participate in the redirect discussion if you wish to do so. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 19:02, 17 March 2020 (UTC)