Which Romance language is easiest for a French speaker to understand?

[Rudel]

There is hardly any conscience between the speakers of the different varieties of Aragonese, and yet linguists know it is a language because despite the difference, the whole system can be defined on linguistic terms. However, following the extralinguistic parametres you mentioned, Aragonese had been wrongly classified as a "dialect of Spanish" for centuries. Not all speakers of a language are conscious of it. If a speaker of an Occitan variety thinks he's speaking 'bad French', patois, that doesn't make it 'bad French' for a linguist.

On the other hand, Bosnia can establish that the country has three official languages, Bosnian, Serbian and Croatian, but such a political action won't just fool any serious linguist.

Academic bias. Linguists have very little authority outside their classrooms.

[Comte Arnau]

Academic bias. Linguists have very little authority outside their classrooms.

Well, he who prefers to belong to the average mass and believe there are only five Romance languages is free to do so, of course. Beatus ille...

[Ouistreham]

This is how I see the distance of the Romance languages from French, more or less.

I've seen a lot of crazy statements on The Apricity but this one takes the cake!

Champenois, Picard, Free-Countian (big LOL) being outside of French? LMAO!

"Orleanese", "Arpitan", "Gallo", what next?

It's like saying that Kentish, Oxfordian and Cambridgian might have some mutual intelligibility with English.

Gennetically, that would be Gallo-Italic languages, but agree it depends on context.

Gallo-Italic dialects are ununderstandable gibberish to us.

[Comte Arnau]

I've seen a lot of crazy statements on The Apricity but this one takes the cake!

Champenois, Picard, Free-Countian (big LOL) being outside of French? LMAO!

"Orleanese", "Arpitan", "Gallo", what next?

It's like saying that Kentish, Oxfordian and Cambridgian might have some mutual intelligibility with English.

You're going all drama queen for a personal interpretation of the graphic. You can consider the whole blue square one single language, if you so need to.

[Rudel]

You're going all drama queen for a personal interpretation of the graphic. You can consider the whole blue square one single language, if you so need to.

"Free-Countian" is worth every bit of it though.