It's a CV, not a resume.

In the US, CVs are used largely by academics and researchers in lieu of resumes. In addition to the standard resume stuff (but usually omitting things like "objectives" and "skills"), CVs include your publications, presentations, professional service, products and patents etc., and in some cases grants and teaching experience. All of it. Unlike resumes, CVs can go on as long as needed.

I understand that the length is standard for a CV, but I can't imagine a situation where the third page of any document would change someone's mind about you in consideration for a job, grant, or other opportunity. Wouldn't it still make more sense to distribute a single page with a curated subset of your work, perhaps with a URL to a more exhaustive CV?

A CV is like a Viking chest-pounding saga about your Great Deeds. The currency of research and academia is publications, presentations, and service. You want to show that you have this in spades. Essentially, a CV is a portfolio, not a resume.

For researchers it's a fairly common number, though it depends on what kind of place you're applying to. If it's an academic position, it can be much longer than 3 pages since you'd list all your publications/projects/service/etc.; if it's a place that doesn't care at all about publications, you can cut them down to a selected two or three and get the CV into 1-2 pages. But three pages seems to be a common compromise when you aren't sure how much the place you're applying to cares about research.

For academics there seems to be a slow move towards the website-CV, though. You still send in a "proper" CV on paper or in a big PDF, but what people will actually do is pull up your website, where they can navigate more interactively (click on "Publications" or "Projects", click on a specific project page or the PDF of a paper to browse it, etc.).

Nope, it's perfectly expected to see an academic CV with multiple pages of publications.

There's nothing wrong with three pages per se - if there is something relevant to put on them. In this case, it just barely overflows into the third page, so IMO it would make good sense, and look a bit more professional, to tighten it slightly to fit on two.

Alternatively, make it a bit longer, so the third page is less empty. English titles of the French papers would make good sense. Also, I'd write a narrative for the intro instead of the "keyword list" (interests).

For a US resume, yes - not for an European CV of a researcher.

CV's in general imply a research/academic role--its the same in the US, CV's should be multi-page.

In Canada, CV == Resumé. I think it can depend based on country. Of course, for researchers, no matter what, you make it as long as it needs to be.

I don't understand this sentiment. What am I supposed to do? Even coming into college, my list of significant (and/or self-launched) projects and work experiences were too many to list on a single page alongside my education and list of "skills" (languages mostly). I spent a loooot of time making it look great and utilize space efficiency and I feel like a Chinese foot-binder whenever I get a new job or publish a new project and want to put it on my resume.

Are we finally to the age where I can put "Please check out http://mypersonalwebsite.com for a detailed list of skills and projects"? I feel like my Resume would be a fluffy arbitrary list of skills with no ummph to back it up and frankly I don't trust the recruiters at high profile tech companies anywhere near enough to do something like this. I've had recruiters doing phone screenings that didn't know what "Windows" vs "Windows Live Services" meant.

i'd suggest having one copy for when you apply to large companies where your resume may have to go through HR, and one copy for when you're applying to startups. for the latter, just submit something that is legible and has a good signal-to-noise ratio.