Not to me! By your reasoning, you must consider NO country, as is, also a "nationality". How many tons of tribes were there throughout Europe alone, before the Romans "united" them? Germans until very recently were notorious for forever fragmenting and never uniting. I suppose 1 could say there are Bavarians, Hessians, and Mecklenburgers instead of an ethnicity called "Germans"! And Lord knows how many others of much more ancient origin (Saxons included, who I guess screwed up the whole English thing)!
I vaguely understand your meaning (and appreciate your metered dialog here on this thread incidentally), but I see little difference between the "French" model and others in Europe. Perhaps you are talking about "types", as opposed to specific nationalities? There are thus, Germanic (Teutonic), Gaulic, Gaelic, Nordic "types". And I would agree - there was never a "French" type. However, how can 1 deny there is NOW a French ethnicity, derived of many types or part of 1?
This to me is about the same discussion as trying to get people straight that the "pit-bull terrier" is a TYPE, not a specific BREED as e.g. an American Pit Bull Terrier.
The difference between the German provinces and the French is illuminating.
In France, there was a monarch, and the different pieces of the country, with their different languages were incorporated into one state because of the monarchy.
In Germany, the Emperor was so weak that there was no political unity. And yet, there was still an identifiable "Germany" because there remains a common language. Language, especially, is an identifier of commonality that distinguishes an ethnicity, at least in its home lands.
Pre-literacy, there was still something intrinsically German about Germany. Low Deutsch and High Deutsch are different, but they are not mutually incomprehensible. The political divisions of Germany were many, but these divisions did not constitute a difference in ethnicity. The German Swiss and the Austrians are still ethnically German. That common tie of language is the most crucial feature, although not the only thing that makes for a distinctive ethnicity.
France was not linguistically unified until universal education. Bretagne and Alsace were as ethnically different as Ireland and England were in the age when the British government ruled both. There is a greater difference, ethnically, between Brest and Paris, and between Strassburg and Paris, than there is between Magdeburg, Zurich and Vienna, and that is despite the fact that the latter three are across national borders from each other, but the former three are all within the same state.
In truth, "ethnicity", "race", "culture" etc. are all very nebulous terms, politically charged terms used to score points historically, to justify things (for example, the German culture and language of Alsace and parts of Lorraine were used by the Germans as justification for war against France).
Native language is probably the best single indicator of any of these things, although it is certainly not absolute.
Religion is another historically important qualifier. What is the difference between a Belgian Flamand and a Dutch? The difference between Catholic faith and Protestant was sufficient to overbear the native tongue.
The difference between France and other countries in Europe is very important in this regard: France is a lot older. Germany came together only in the 1870s, and it was able to do so because of ethnic, cultural and linguistic ties between the people living in Germany. Italy did the same thing in the 1860s, for the same reasons. By contrast, Austria-Hungary flew to pieces on account of those same forces. The unifying center of the monarchial state was not sufficient to override the ethnic and cultural differences. Poland reformed itself because of the nationalism of the Poles, but it's a new country.
Indeed, if one looks carefully at the countries of Europe, one finds that most of them, going East to West, largely confined to the geographic boundaries of a common language, ethnicity and religion. Wherever people protrude across those lines, there is trouble. Belgium is federal and constantly in danger of flying apart because of this.
But then one comes to the two really ancient kingdoms: France and England, and one finds the rule does not hold.
France has broad ethnic diversity within the country. Saxony is not nearly as different from Bavaria as Brittany is from Alsace, or Toulouse is from Flanders. Until the 19th and 20th Centuries, the people of these provinces did not speak a common language. What made them French was the state.
Britain too is a nationality forged from a polyglot of very different languages and cultures held together, mostly, by the crown at the center. In this sense, Britain and France properly resemble the Austro-Hungarian Empire, which could not survive the centrifugal forces of culture. Germany and Italy exist because of the centipetal force of language and culture naturally bringing them together. Likewise Sweden, or Finland, or Portugal.
Britain was not ultimately able to hold onto the western island, despite reaching linguistic commonality, because the centrifugal force of culture and religion and history - real ethnic differences - were simply too great to be overcome.
France is different because it has held together major Celtic, Germanic, Latin, Basque, African and Polynesian provinces. Is French an ethnicity NOW?
I would say that it is to the extent that American is, or British. There are a set of ideas and cultural practices, and a common language, which define the French, British or Americans. These ideas, this language and these practices are not native to the French, British or American constituent peoples historically (by contrast, that which is German or Italian or Polish, Danish, Dutch, Portuguese, Irish, Greek, Serb, Croat, Slovakian, Slovenian, Romanian, Bulgarian, Albanian or Swedish IS native to most of the people who live in those countries, whose boundaries mostly conform to the limits of that particular ethno-linquistic group). A new ethnicity, based on common language, culture and ideas forged together by the states that govern America, France and Britain certainly has emerged.
I suppose I would accept that "French" is an ethnicity of sorts TODAY, but it includes Blacks, North African Muslims, Celts, Teutons and Latins, all still identifiably so. "British" is an ethnicity that includes Scots, Irish, Welsh and English. And "American" is an ethnicity composed of people born in America, who have only known the US culture.
I would draw a very distinct line between pre-literate and post-literate Europe. Post-literacy, culture became stronger and more regularized because there came to be A form of the language that dominated.
But before we wade deeper into the pool, I think it would do best to pull far, far back to get the 50,000 foot view.
Looking at Europe, East to West and South to North, we find that MOST countries conform almost perfectly to ethno-linguistic lines, with only a few overlaps (and wherever there are those overlaps, there are deep troubles even today).
In the far West, with France and Britain, and to an extent Spain, you have the very oldest of the states of Europes, and the ethnic unicity of these countries breaks down. These countries were NOT formed on an ethnic, cultural or linguistic principle, but in the earlier, pre-literate age based upon the power of a monarch. Disparate provinces of very different languages and cultures, in the case of France and Britain (Spain's differences lie in Catalunia and the Basque country, and Spanish efforts to repress those ethnic differences have been markedly unsuccessful, putting Spain in the league of an ethnic state with an important overlap that it is unable to digest, and not comparable to Britain and France) were held together by a monarch, like Austria-Hungary was.
Unlike Austria-Hungary, the British, and especially the French monarchies (and republic) were able to cause the ethno-linguistic differences between the parts of their countries - which are as stark as can be found anywhere in Europe - and cause them to blend into something new.
This is not an ancient thing.
That you yourself look at the French as "French", and not as Alsatians, Basques and Celts (while a Basque right across in Spain is clearly a Basque) shows you the success that the French have had in this regard.
As I say, I could agree with you that TODAY there is something of a French ethnicity, but I would say that this would be true to the extent that there is also an American "ethnicity", and for the same reason.
France succeeded in doing what Yugoslavia, for instance, or Russia, were not able to do.
And I guess the key is that if one really goes back, it is not possible to actually find a "French" ethnicity that reached out and conquered the rest of it. There are definitely the English, and where they came from is clear.
In Yugoslavia, it was clear that the Serbs dominated.
In Spain, the Castillians.
But in France?
It is tough to find a region whose culture came to dominate the rest. Unity was forged by government.
This is much like America. And "American" might well be an ethnicity, but if it is, it is based on a set of ideas and history, and not on the the same things that ethnicity mean in almost all of Europe.
France is an older, monarchial model of the melting pot, in a way like China, and really not like Germany or Italy at all.