I have not read the linguist's essay, just the article, but I am almost certain the claims are preposterous.

The article already mentions that the structure is definitely germanic in origin. Next are the words. Some are adopted from other languages, but many more have roots in Germanic and Latin. The reason is that Romans invaded Britain some 2000 years ago. Afterwards, Latin was spoken in learned circles until the renaissance and even later.

When French became the language of diplomacy, IIRC at the time of Napoleon, only that's when French became a language of note. That's when the "sofisticated" words like veal, venison etc. enter the English language.

But, even all that aside, my native language is Slavic. I speak both English and German, and a very little bit of French. In my limited personal view, German and English have much more in common than French and English.

Reply to self: it seems I was wrong and veal, venison, etc. have roots in Old French, which has influenced Old English through Normandic invasion.

Still, I stand by my assessment: while it's clear that influences are there to some of the words, it's clearly more germanic. Just as we say today that French is a romanic language and English is germanic. I see no evidence here to counter this common classification.