There is considerable disagreement between the editors of articles related to France or French about which sources are reliable. The important thing to remember is that all sources and articles must conform to Wiki policies such as WP:No original research, WP:Verifiability and WP:Neutral point of view.
The most general rule of the Wikipedia is that editors should use the most common form of the name or expression used in English (WP:ENGLISH). There are however many cases in which this rule is difficult to put into practice. When giving a parenthetical French expression after a English word, editors may use {{lang-fr|word}} where "word" is the French word. Example: National Assembly (French: Assemblée nationale).
Other French words or phrases should use {{lang}}, thus: {{lang|fr|''Assemblée nationale''}}), which renders as Assemblée nationale.
French proper names and expressions should respect the use of accents and ligatures in French. These are:
Accent a e i o u yCommon French usage is to omit accents in capitals, however this is not the proper usage and accents should be included in capitals (as required by the Imprimerie nationale). When used in article names, all common non-accented/non-ligatured forms should redirect to the article. There will often be many redirects, but this is intentional and does not represent a problem.
Accented characters and ligatures should not affect the sort order of articles in categories etc. So, where proper names have accents or ligatures, include the {{DEFAULTSORT:}} magic word in the article, with those accented characters and ligatures replaced by plain versions. See Évisa (source) for an example.
Note that communes and other places starting with the defintite article (La, Le, Les, L') should have the {{DEFAULTSORT}} magic word added with the article missing, e.g. La Vernelle has should contain {{DEFAULTSORT:Vernelle}}.
Apart from the above rules, the following conventions should also be followed:
{{DEFAULTSORT}} magic word with hyphens missingCapitalization of French expressions and titles is currently highly chaotic. For capitalization of noble titles or of French works of art, see below.
There is currently no standard convention for French noble titles and present-day English usage varies greatly. In Wikipedia articles, French noble titles are currently listed in two different ways:
Furthermore, in the second case—French titles in French form—capitalization is currently chaotic:
Present English usage itself varies on how to spell such French forms and there is currently no consensus among editors on the issue of capitalization. As a general rule, if the individual is not better known by an English equivalent and a French form is to be used, it is recommended, regardless of which form of capitalization is utilized, that forms remain consistent throughout a specific article and that redirects be made from the other acceptable forms.
In Wikipedia articles and article titles, French titles of works of art should be put into English, if the work of art is well-known by its title in English (with redirects from the French title). If it is more well-known by its title in French, then French should be maintained (with redirects from the English title).
Usage varies in contemporary French with regards to the capitalization of words in titles, and especially to the capitalization of initial words after a definite article. For consistency of French titles on the English Wikipedia, the general consensus has been to follow the rules used on the French Wikipedia, which are those used by the French National publishing house (l'Imprimerie nationale) and put forth in its Lexique des règles typographiques en usage à l'Imprimerie nationale. Titles which adhere to these rules may however differ from the actual form of capitalization adopted by the author, the cover's graphic artist, or the publishing house.[3]
These rules are a follows:
The words capitalized in titles of works of art (books, paintings, etc.) are:
However:
Examples:
All common forms with variant capitalization should redirect to the article. There will often be many redirects, but this is intentional and does not represent a problem.
Note: certain WikiProjects have adopted other rules. WikiProject Opera, for example, uses the style used in the most recent editions of New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians and New Grove Dictionary of Opera (see their rules here) which only capitalize the first word and any proper nouns (e.g. La bohème and not La Bohème). The WikiProject Visual arts Manual of Style states that the form most commonly used by native English-speaking art historians should be used, regardless of whether it is correct in contemporary French or not.