Metropolitan France

Metropolitan France (French: France métropolitaine or la Métropole), also called European France (le territoire européen de la France), refers to the portion of the French Republic situated in Europe. This area includes the mainland—often nicknamed "the Hexagon" (l'Hexagone)—along with the island of Corsica and several smaller French islands in the Atlantic Ocean, the English Channel, and the Mediterranean Sea. Although the term is official and commonly used in daily life, it carries no administrative weight: overseas regions hold the same legal status as those in Europe.

Etymology

A key practical difference, however, is that only Metropolitan France belongs to the Schengen Area. The country’s borders—especially in the east—shifted considerably over the centuries but have stayed largely the same since Algeria became independent in 1962, with only small tweaks, mostly along the Swiss frontier. The concept of "metropolitan France" originated during the colonial era (16th–20th centuries), when the homeland was called la Métropole (the "mother city") to set it apart from its colonies and protectorates, collectively known as l'Empire.

Similar terms existed for other European colonial powers, such as "metropolitan Spain." The word itself comes from Ancient Greek metropolis (from mētēr, "mother," and pólis, "city"), which described a city-state that founded colonies—for example, Phocaea was the metropolis of Marseille. Over time, "metropolis" came to mean the motherland, a nation distinct from its overseas possessions. Today, some people in Overseas France object to France métropolitaine because of its colonial baggage, preferring "the European territory of France"—the phrasing used in European Union treaties.

They also resist treating overseas and metropolitan France as separate entities. This tension has shaped official statistics: until the late 1990s, France’s national statistics agency (INSEE) calculated figures like population and GDP only for metropolitan France, leaving out the overseas departments. After opposition from those departments, INSEE began including them in its totals, referring to the combined area as la France entière ("the whole of France").

Mayotte, the fifth overseas department, was added in the mid-2010s. However, la France entière still excludes other overseas collectivities with greater autonomy. Other government branches define the term differently: the Ministry of the Interior, for instance, uses la France entière to mean the entire Republic, including all overseas territories. This broader definition has spread to international bodies—the World Bank, for example, publishes French GDP including metropolitan France and the five overseas departments, simply calling it "France."

Statistics

Metropolitan France covers 543,940 km² (82.0% of the Republic’s land territory), while overseas France adds 119,396 km², for a total of 663,336 km² (excluding Adélie Land in Antarctica, whose sovereignty is suspended under the 1959 Antarctic Treaty). At sea, the metropolitan exclusive economic zone (EEZ) spans 333,691 km²—just 3.3% of the Republic’s total EEZ of 10,159,229 km². Demographically, as of January 2026, INSEE reported 66,793,000 people in metropolitan France and 2,891,000 in overseas France, making up 95.9% of the Republic’s 69,684,000 inhabitants.

In the 2022 presidential election’s second round, 35,096,478 French citizens voted (turnout 71.99%). Of these, 33,592,754 ballots were cast in metropolitan France (turnout 74.04%), 952,238 in overseas France (turnout 48.70%), and 551,486 by French citizens abroad (turnout 38.62%). The National Assembly has 577 deputies: 539 elected in metropolitan France (93.4%), 27 in overseas France (4.7%), and 11 by French expatriates (1.9%). In overseas territories, a person from metropolitan France is often called a métro, short for métropolitain.