Even taking the AP’s claim about how bad it is to say “the X” on face value for the sake of argument - I don’t understand how the tweet was “inappropriate” specifically for saying “the French” when they were using it as an example. What did they themselves find inappropriate about “the French” specifically in that tweet that wasn’t inappropriate about “the poor”?

This is a serious question lol. If it was offensive even for them to say “the French” in an example, then why didn’t they apologize for all the other examples they gave