The most widely spoken regional language is Occitan, also called the langue d’oc (Languedoc), which is prevalent in southern France. Perhaps 5 or 6 million people speak Provençal, the major dialect of the langue d’oc. Nearly all of these speakers speak the dominant French language as well. The languages spoken north and south of the Loire River began diverging in the early Middle Ages and by the late 13th century had emerged as distinct languages. The langue d’oc is rooted in a Latin-derived regional culture that was once much more Mediterranean and Roman-influenced than the German-influenced culture of northern France. The French state’s historical drive to create a unified French language, in part by requiring state primary schools to teach in the language of the Île de France, has succeeded in assimilating the langue d’oc. In 1993, in a show of greater tolerance, the French government permitted state schools to teach regional languages, including the langue d’oc.

The French are, paradoxically, strongly conscious of belonging to a single nation, but they hardly constitute a unified racial group by any scientific gauge. Before the official discovery of the Americas at the end of the 15th century, France, located on the western extremity of the Old World, was regarded for centuries by Europeans as being near the edge of the known world. Generations of different migrants traveling by way of the Mediterranean from the Middle East and Africa and through Europe from Central Asia and the Nordic lands settled permanently in France, forming a variegated grouping, almost like a series of geologic strata, since they were unable to migrate any farther. Perhaps the oldest reflection of these migrations is furnished by the Basque people, who live in an isolated area west of the Pyrenees, in both Spain and France, and whose origin remains unclear. The Celtic tribes, known to the Romans as Gauls, spread from central Europe in the period 500 BC–AD 500 to provide France with a major component of its population