"Yes, the French are... lazy. It’s just not in the way we lazily think."

I'm reading "Are French People Just Lazy?" by the historian Robert Zaretsky (NYT).

Consider Michel de Montaigne, who in 1571, fed up with his job as a magistrate in the city of Bordeaux, quit at the age of 38. Retreating to his library, he inscribed his reason on the wall of his study. 

“Weary of the servitude of the courts,” Mr. Montaigne declared, “I am determined to retire in order to spend what little remains of my life, now more than half run out … consecrated to my freedom, tranquillity, and leisure.... I do nothing without gaiety.”...  

[I]n 2016, when demonstrators occupied public places across France to oppose the labor reforms proposed by the then-Socialist government[, o]ne of their demands was the creation of a universal basic income. This would, in effect, subsidize laziness — or, more accurately, a certain kind of laziness. 

While la paresse is a common word for laziness in French, so too is l’oisiveté. Deriving from the Latin otium, it means focused calm or even spiritual elevation, so very different from negotium, the sort of work that gets in life’s way. 

A few months ago, Sandrine Rousseau, a prominent member of the French Green Party, caused a stir when she called for a worker’s right to laziness.....

The article uses the term "the French" — 4 times. It never uses "French people," the term used in the headline.

I'm noticing this because over on Facebook, my son John posted this: 

I wonder if the headline writer got the first message but not the second. It seems that the first position AP took was that there's a problem with putting "the" in front of a name that refers to a group even when you want to group them together and speak of them as a group.

It's hard to explain why, but remember when Dave Chappelle said (talking about Kanye West):

"Early in my career, I learned there are two words you should never say together. Those words are...'the'..." — long pause — "and 'Jews.'"

Similarly, it's better to say "black people" than "blacks," and you really don't want to say "the blacks."

But apparently, some people got offended getting told not to say "the French." What's going on there?

In any case, the headline writer and the column writer are at odds. Is it "French people" or "the French"? I think the column writer, Zaretsky, chose "the French" because he really wanted to say there is something in the national character, and this is not a place where he wanted to celebrate the diversity of individuals. He wanted to stress the commonality. The word he uses for that commonality — "laziness" — is deliberately alarming. And the headline writer just had to soften it, to step on the intriguing quality of the assertion. 

Maybe the headline writer also softened it by using a question — "Are French People Just Lazy?" I picked out Zeretsky's quote "Yes, the French are... lazy."

Of course, he goes on to describe that "laziness" in a positive way. Clever? Perhaps. 

But this is a cleverness you can do in the NYT with French people — and even "the French" — but do not try that with black people or, God forbid, "the blacks."