Africa dwarfs France: about 30,370,000 km² km² against 635,064 km² km². At true size Africa is about 47.8× larger — the whole of France fits into Africa roughly 47 times.
The old Mercator map treated both about equally (1× vs 1.9× inflation), so at least their relative sizes were preserved — even if both were drawn at the wrong absolute scale.
France fits 47× into Africa.