History
French people are the descendants of Gauls (a western European Celtic people), as well as Italic people, Sarmatian peoples (Alans, Taifals), Bretons, Aquitanians (Basques), Iberians, and Greeks in southern France, mixed with the Germanic people arriving at the end of the Roman Empire such as the Franks, the Belgae, the Visigoths, the Suebi, the Marcomanni, the Vandals, the Saxons, the Allemanni and the Burgundians, and later Germanic tribes such as the Vikings (known as Normans), who settled mostly in Normandy in the 9th century.
The name "France" etymologically derives from the word Francia, the territory of the Franks. The Franks were a Germanic tribe that overran Roman Gaul at the end of the Roman Empire.
Some regions were immensely affected by mass migrations of different peoples: Celtics in Brittany, and Germanics in Alsatia (Alemanni) before the existence of the Frankish kingdoms, and the languages and culture of these regions continue through self-perpetuation until this day.
Read more about this topic: French People
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“The history of work has been, in part, the history of the worker’s body. Production depended on what the body could accomplish with strength and skill. Techniques that improve output have been driven by a general desire to decrease the pain of labor as well as by employers’ intentions to escape dependency upon that knowledge which only the sentient laboring body could provide.”
—Shoshana Zuboff (b. 1951)
“Free from public debt, at peace with all the world, and with no complicated interests to consult in our intercourse with foreign powers, the present may be hailed as the epoch in our history the most favorable for the settlement of those principles in our domestic policy which shall be best calculated to give stability to our Republic and secure the blessings of freedom to our citizens.”
—Andrew Jackson (1767–1845)
“American time has stretched around the world. It has become the dominant tempo of modern history, especially of the history of Europe.”
—Harold Rosenberg (1906–1978)