Absolutely. My own upcoming novel, Traffic, is set in western France among the semi-detached, dislocated English community of the Vendée. Among themselves, expats from the UK often use the American-introduced term "Brits". But to the French, we are, and always will be, "les anglais". As it happens, I am Irish and my wife is American. But our French neighbours, whom we have known for eleven years, invariably refer to us as "anglais". Even when I remind them of our actual nati0nalities, they are unimpressed. "Ah, oui – Irlandais, Americaine ... anglais!"  Perhaps if I spoke Irish and my wife habitually conversed in Navajo, we might escape the blanket description. Failing that, we are what they say we are. Time to send a gunboat.