The French aren't that dark and swarthy.
French people don't look like that. The French people in this movie look like Sicilians or Greeks.
shareCorsica is in the middle of the Mediterranean, Mali is in North Africa, Guyana is in South America, Polynesia is in the centre of the Pacific,etc - you'd be hard pressed to say that the French have one distinct look everywhere. That's like saying Ghurkas aren't British or Hawaiians aren't American.
Ya Kirk-loving Spocksucker!
Also, the great French naval bases were Brest in Brittany and Toulon in the Mediterranean; and the bulk of French shipping in general was based on the Breton and Mediterranean coasts. A ship sailing out of Toulon or any other port on the Mediterranean coast would likely have been largely manned by seamen from anywhere in the Mediterranean - not only Frenchmen but Spaniards, North Africans, Levantines. So on average they would have been darker than the mainstream population of France.
shareThat's like saying Ghurkas aren't British or Hawaiians aren't American.
That comparison doesn't make sense, the Ghurkas aren't British, all they are are Nepalese men who join a regiment of the British army, Hawaiians, on the other hand, are a people part of the state of Hawaii, which is a state of the US, those two aren't the same at all. share