For France, it would be power projection into west and central Africa, northern South America, the Antarctic ocean, the Indian Ocean departments, and in the francophone Pacific ocean. Remember, France's longest land border is with Brazil and the non-metropole departments are ~1/5 French citizens. Francophone Africa overpopulates France herself by about 5x.

Such a mobile base of operations and air power is worth it to her, per the article.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_territorial_entities_w...