Re: French genetics

I've a rather important question for anyone who knows something about
> French history: of what racial stock are the French? Are they descended
> from the Germanic tribe called the Franks? If so, what happened to all
> the Romans living there?
>
> In the same vein, where did the Normans come from?
>
>
> Thanks in advance for any information you can give me!
>
This has been for long a very sensitive question in France. For centuries the
nonsensical legend went that nobility was from Frank stock ('sang bleu') while
the rest of the population was Gaul. This was an argument used successively by
the nobility, the revolutionaires, the left political wing, etc.
Centralisation, republican school and military service were the successful
tools for uprooting languages and regional particularisms within a century. Now
that's how John Cowan says : French genes have been re-re-re-mixed for
centuries. Invaders were small quantities but of so various stocks. You could
identify some quite different stocks but I don't know of a genetical survey
that could distinguish them : Brittons from Great-Britain, Germanic Alsaciens,
people from the northern region were Vlaams was spoken. Basques have definitely
a different standard rhesus which dilution in population is now used by
scientists as a reference to tell the trek of Indo-Europeans on the European!
 t!
!
!
erritory. But I read years ago a press article claiming that one in four French would
have a 'foreign' grand-parent by now. One part of family is from Orleans,
another one from Limousin rooting from Marseille with strong Hungarian and
Greek tints and still I think I'm average compared to many French. From the
beginning of this century millions of Italians, Poles, Spanish, Portuguese and
Northern Africans have settled here, so now one in eleven newborns has a parent
from foreign origin.

Mathias



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