In imagining what I would call various Europeans, I would probably say Germans or English people or Italians, or people from Spain, but I would definitely say the French and there seems to be some hint of negativity to it.
My perception of the French (there it is!) is that they are haughty and condescending, especially of americans. I also carry some patronizing admonition about their military role in the world wars.
You can criticize this for being preconceived and ignorant - you'd probably be right. I'm not rationally arguing, just exploring my own headspace and finding some emotional validity in TFA. It would be woke garbage to make the claim that prefixing "the" in front of everyone is dehumanizing, but I at least only do that selectively with the apparent intent to marginalize.