Why France is Secretly the World's 5th Biggest Country

this video is made possible by ting lower your monthly phone bill and get a free 25 credit by following the link that's down in the description this is france now i know what you're thinking if you live in spain italy switzerland germany belgium the uk or god forbid within france itself then you already know that you're not very far away from france and if you live in somewhere like north america asia australia or south america then you know that you live pretty far away from france except that that second part isn't really true because the france i showed you at the beginning isn't really the entirety of france in reality france is everywhere across the world like literally everywhere here's france and north america here's france and south america and the caribbean including this island right here that's divided between france and the netherlands meaning that france and the netherlands actually do share a border it's just not in europe it's in the caribbean here's france closer to mexico here's france around madagascar here's france in the indian ocean and here's france and the pacific ocean with all these different locations across the globe you're probably not as far away from france as you may have thought if you don't live in europe inspired by a map i found created by a reddit user named all hail madame let's take a look at how far away you really are from france colored in black is france itself within any of the red zones you're unfortunately less than a thousand kilometers away from sovereign french territory meaning that you could pretty much begin hearing french at nearly any minute areas like nova scotia new brunswick quebec maine venezuela brazil madagascar mozambique and south africa are pretty much all just as far away from actual sovereign france as germany or austria within the orange zone you're less than 2 000 kilometers away from france which includes the entire northeastern united states most of mexico the entire caribbean and a whole lot of africa these zones keep radiating out until we're left with this empty patch here across east asia within this zone you're pretty safe because you're more than 7 000 kilometers away from any french territory and it's the furthest possible area away from france you can get anywhere on the planet spanning across most of china north korea the japanese island of hokkaido and far eastern russia now the various parts of france that exist all over the world outside of europe that make all of this possible are known as overseas france and it's this other part of france that makes france a true global 21st century great power all together these various islands and land masses outside of europe add 119 386 square kilometers of territory to the french republic which is 18 of france's total land area and is roughly the same size as either north korea or bulgaria it's huge and nearly 3 million people live across it all which is about how many people live in the u.s state of kansas and it represents about four percent of the entire french population oh yeah and that's the thing they're all citizens of france and therefore citizens of the european union by extension as well which makes all nearly three million of them living in places as far away as the caribbean south america and the pacific ocean all capable of voting in both french and european elections and because of all these territories existing across the globe france is actually the country with the highest number of time zones russia the world's largest country spans across only 11 time zones from west to east but france all with her empire across the world actually spans across 13 time zones that are shared with places as far away as anchorage honolulu los angeles new york city rio de janeiro paris obviously moscow dubai karachi vladivostok sydney and auckland it appears that in the 21st century the sun continues to never set on the french empire but that all just kind of begs another question why in the world does france even have an empire that's still this vast outside of europe well like every other european power france also got in on the overseas empire game over hundreds of years of progress with colonies across africa the middle east and asia but after world war ii the world stopped being very sympathetic to colonies and the colonies of france gradually began declaring their own independences culminating with france's final colony in africa djibouti in 1977 and the pacific island of vanuatu in 1980 what remains are the final vestiges of the ancient french colonial empire that simply never desired independence for themselves and have thus remained a part of 21st century france some of them are totally uninhabited are really only home to seasonal scientists like clipperton island here in the pacific the various islands of the southern and antarctic lands and ataliland france's claim over antarctica grants them direct access to the south pole but all the other places are actually inhabited by permanent populations of people and some of them are really hugely important places there's reunion island way out here over by madagascar in the indian ocean with a population of more than 850 000 people which alone is more than two actual eu member states malta and luxembourg and nearly as much as a third cypress nearby mayot has an additional population of more than 270 thousand meaning that there's over a million french citizens living in the indian ocean were by madagascar and africa both islands are a fully fledged integral part of france they use euros and as such they're the outermost region of both the european union and the eurozone like two distant moons orbiting around their far away planet reunion is one of the few locations the europeans discovered across the world that was actually truly uninhabited back at the time and the french acquired it back in the 17th century and have simply kept it ever since but there's other big locations in france's overseas territories too like french guiana way over here in south america just like reunion french guyana is an integral part of france that uses euros and is part of the european union despite bordering brazil and containing part of the amazon rainforest this little chunk of europe and france and south america isn't really so little though because it's nearly the same size as austria and one-seventh the size of metropolitan france itself back in europe albeit with a pretty little population of only about 300 000 people which means that the population density throughout is on a par with siberia that's because nearly 99 of french guiana is completely covered by forests including the guiana amazonian park which alone takes up more than 40 percent of french guiana and is hilariously the largest national park of the european union despite well you know being located in south america french guiana is immensely important to both france and europe today because it is the primary launch site for rockets of the european space agency or esa and it's specifically because of french guiana's geographic location look at this map of the world and then think to yourself where are the best locations possible to blast rockets off in a space from the correct answer is as close as you can get to the equator across the earth's center and it's because here along this line the planet is rotating faster than anywhere else rockets need all the speed they can get in order to break out of earth's gravity and the earth's natural rotation speed can give them a much needed boost unfortunately for europe the equator runs pretty considerably far away from their continent which makes blasting rockets off from there a little more challenging but fortunately for europe they spent centuries taking over colonies in other parts of the world and it turned out that french guiana in particular is located really really close to the equator and so that's how this little chunk of south america became europe's most important spaceport it's so important that at one point back in the 1990s the guyana space center alone accounted for more than a quarter of french guiana's entire gdp alright so moving on over to the pacific france retains possessions of hundreds of islands and atolls across french polynesia new caledonia wallace and futuna and clipperton island including the island of bora bora inside of french polynesia which is one of france's most popular tourist destinations despite being located on the complete opposite side of the world from paris but the pacific part of france carries a darker secret than the other parts of overseas france does because it was here that france primarily conducted their decades-long nuclear weapons testing back in 1960 when the french empire still spanned much more of the globe france became the fourth country to successfully test and detonate a nuclear weapon after the united states soviet union and united kingdom but they did so initially within the empty deserts of algeria awkwardly at the same time that algeria was fighting a war against france for their own independence france would go on to detonate a total of 17 nuclear weapons inside of the empty deserts of algeria before it became an independent nation after which they subsequently refused to continue allowing france to test their nukes there so still wanting to test their bombs somewhere they began looking for alternatives one such idea was to begin testing them on the uninhabited clipperton island nearby to mexico but this was ruled out because of the island's intense level of remoteness and also mexico probably would have had a thing or two to say about it eventually france settled on continuing their nuclear weapons testing over in french polynesia where a total of 193 detonations would be carried out in the pacific ocean nearby which brought france directly into conflict with nearby new zealand in 1985. back then the organization greenpeace orchestrated a campaign against the continued french nuclear testing in the area with a boat called the rainbow warrior which was docked in port inside of auckland new zealand the ship was about to depart towards french polynesia to protest against a planned french nuclear test when two undercover french operatives secretly snuck on board planted a bomb and then blew the ship apart the explosion sank the ship and killed a greenpeace photographer who was on board the french agents were quickly apprehended afterwards by the new zealand police and were each sentenced to 10 years in prison for manslaughter they would ultimately only serve for two years before being freed by the french government many political figures especially in new zealand have consistently referred to the action ever since as an incident of french state-sponsored terrorism and france would ultimately agree to pay 8.16 million dollars in damages to greenpeace along with 6.5 million dollars to the new zealand government as an apology and a further half a million dollars to the photographer's family as compensation france would continue testing nuclear weapons in polynesia for 11 more years until 1996. the year of their final detonation and ever since they've switched to using computer simulations for their nuclear weapons testing instead and today france maintains an arsenal of approximately 300 nuclear weapons the third largest arsenal in the world after the united states and russia so that was one reason that france kept much of their overseas empire but overall the biggest reason why france maintains the overseas empire up to the present is because of the control that it gives france and the european union as a proxy over the world's oceans you see under the terms of the united nations convention on the law of the sea or unclose any country may claim an exclusive economic zone or eez of the water surrounding their sovereign coastline the country making the claim retains the sole and exclusive legal authority for all fishing drilling mining and all other economic activities and because of their hundreds of islands and territories that are scattered across all the corners of the earth france actually possesses the modern world's largest eez and therefore the largest maritime territory of any 21st century nation ahead of even the united states and australia france's eez spans nearly 11.7 million square kilometers of ocean across the bay of biscay the indian ocean while almost completely surrounding madagascar huge blotches of the pacific ocean and even a tiny little sliver here just south of canada these small islands are saint pierre and mykolone and despite being located right next to newfoundland and canada they're a part of france and home to more than 6 000 french citizens who all use euros they are the small final remaining vestiges of the old colonial new france and the americas and they have a fascinating history of control when france was defeated in the seven years war back in 1763 they were forced to cede all of their north american possessions over to the british but since the british continued to grant the french fishing rights along the newfoundland coast they allowed them to keep the tiny islands as a little fishing outpost when france supported america during the american revolution burton invaded the islands raised the settlement and exiled the entire french population back to european france out of spite burton tried to bring in british settlers to repopulate the islands but then the french came back and sacked the british colony eventually the british gave the islands back to france once again in 1802 but then after war with napoleon erupted they reoccupied them again the very next year in 1803. when the napoleonic wars were concluded 11 years later in 1814 the british once again gave the islands back to france but then occupied them again in 1815 when napoleon briefly returned to power in france and then gave them back to france yet again after he was defeated after waterloo for good and they've been french ever since during the first world war all of the men on the islands were drafted and about 400 went on to serve on the western front in europe where a quarter of them would die when the topic of eez came up in the 1970s france initially claimed a huge one for the tiny little islands that severely interrupted nearby canada's eez which led to a very long legal dispute between both countries over fishing rights it was only eventually settled in 1992 when france accepted the significantly smaller and narrower boundaries of the current eez here but it's still kind of weird because now the french control this zone where they're the only ones who are allowed to fish and it's completely surrounded by the zone where the canadians are the only ones who are allowed to fish so canadian fishermen have to always move around it and local french fishermen are always confined within it but when zooming back out again to see the full picture france's oceanic territory all combined across the world is larger than the entirety of the european continent itself and france possesses eight percent of the entire world's eez areas despite the fact that france itself only possesses 0.45 of the world's land and only 0.84 of the world's population if you were to combine both land and maritime area for every country in the world then france all of a sudden ranks as the world's fifth largest country beating out places like brazil china india or indonesia which is frankly just ridiculous and it all gives france and by extension the european union an enormous global geopolitical advantage when also factoring in spain portugal the netherlands and denmark's overseas territories the european union's collective eez enables it to dominate the entire baltic control nearly the entire mediterranean and the eastern north atlantic and have outposts across every ocean and every corner of the globe after the united kingdom and the united states france even further maintains the third largest amount of overseas military bases outside of their home territory with bases all across their overseas possessions in south america the caribbean indian and pacific oceans with even further bases across many of their former colonies in africa like djibouti ivory coast gabon senegal mali chad and niger additional bases across the middle east in syria iraq jordan and the uae and a final two more inside of germany altogether france maintains a force of more than 36 000 soldiers deployed to these territories across the world and ever since 2001 the french have initiated military interventions across these nine countries on two separate continents the presence of these french military bases and soldiers all across the world from south america to africa the middle east and the pacific gives the french a very similar capability to the united states they can project power and deploy military assets at a moment's notice to counter almost any threat anywhere on the planet so when you look in a map like this you realize that the global french and therefore the global european empire is very much still alive and well in the 21st century and as a result france and europe are probably a lot closer to you than you may have realized but something else you may haven't realized yet is just how much you're probably overpaying for your current cell phone plan and how much you could save by switching over to ting i personally switched over to team myself a few months ago and why well because of this yep that's actually a real phone bill that i received from my old carrier right before i made my switch earlier this year but team mobile has three different plans to choose from to make sure that never happens again unlimited talk and text starts at just ten dollars and then data is five dollars a gigabyte or you can just get their unlimited plan for just forty five dollars they've also got other plans with five or twelve gigabytes of data but regardless the point is that you 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Channel: RealLifeLore

Views: 4,093,411

Keywords: real life lore, real life lore maps, real life lore geography, real life maps, world map, world map is wrong, world map with countries, world map real size, map of the world, world geography, geography, geography (field of study), facts you didn’t know, france, overseas empire, outre mer, french empire, french overseas territories, france empire, france overseas territories

Id: kXP8F4TIZ0U

Length: 18min 0sec (1080 seconds)

Published: Tue Nov 09 2021