If I set draft: true in _index.fr.md, it unpublishes the tags pages in the default language. Should this be happening? I don’t have translated pages in some of these tags. Or should i create the language file only after publishing the first translated post in that tag?
I am unable to reproduce what you describe. Try this:
git clone --single-branch -b hugo-forum-topic-56056 https://github.com/jmooring/hugo-testing hugo-forum-topic-56056
cd hugo-forum-topic-56056
rm -rf public && hugo && tree public
In the example above, I’ve set draft to true in content/tags/bar/_index.fr.md.
My earlier test of simply looking at the published directory structure was invalid. You’ve found a bug. I’ll post a link to the GitHub issue once logged.