France dwarfs South America: about 635,064 km² km² against 17,840,000 km² km². At true size France is about 28.1× larger — the whole of South America fits into France roughly 28 times.
The old Mercator map treated both about equally (1.9× vs 1× inflation), so at least their relative sizes were preserved — even if both were drawn at the wrong absolute scale.
France fits 28× into South America.