A pretender arises due to low legitimacy of thread. Disregarding battle abstractions, unit compositions and leaders, many of the claims in thread are un-sourced and of dubious factuality.
For example, what evidence is there, "French vassals should be modeled by being French provinces with high local autonomy. I think they were made vassals because the LA mechanics were not in the game originally." In reality France was considerably fractured during 15th and even 16th centuries.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crown_lands_of_France
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Map_France_1477-en_sovereign_Béarn.png
And how is this different than pretty much every other large country in Europe? That's how feudalism worked. It's exactly what local autonomy should represent.
In France's case, it's not like they're giving every 2-bit baron their own country in vassalage to France. Some of the vassals are 'arranages' - lands left to non-inheriting male children of the King until their male line ends, at which point they are automatically repossessed by the crown. (This is definitely true of Bourbonnais and Orleans, for example). These were never apart from France, even if they enjoyed some local autonomy of rule.
Some of the others are simply noble dynasties that enjoyed a relatively high degree of autonomy from the crown for historical reasons, notably the Armagnacs and Foix lands in southern France (which has to do with how northern France asserted control over southern France in the first place).
The key words here are *relatively high degree of autonomy*. They weren't separate political entities as recognized by their contemporaries or as recognized by modern scholarship. They were part of France. The autonomy they enjoyed is exactly what the autonomy mechanic represents. None of these non-states ever succeeded in breaking away from France politically (unlike Provence and Burgundy, which are legitimately independent countries, and not vassals at all).
The Armagnacs rebelled in the 16th century - a much smaller affair than the War of the Roses in England, and easily represented by event.
The "Crown Lands" are simply lands directly ruled by the King, and is exactly what would be meant by 0% local autonomy. The game is not set up to handle dynastic possession within a nation, nor is the focus on your dynasty. If you want that, go play CKII, which is designed for the dynastic game. The use of vassals to represent this is a terrible cludge that creates serious ahistorical imbalances in the HYW, and has little long-term game impact, because France just annexes the Vassals as soon as possible.
So, historically they're _part of France_ (which includes more than just the crown lands, even in the eyes of contemporaries at the time). Game mechanically, there's no reason for these to be vassals instead of high autonomy provinces. And in terms of modelling the HYW, making them high autonomy provinces is actually better for the game, as it markedly reduces the ridiculous troop advantage France currently enjoys relative to England - something it never enjoyed historically.
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