Actually, now that I think about it, the sense of "Metropolitan France" is very similar to the term "the continental United States"

But if you're a US citizen living over there and you made money from sources other than from that territory, you would have to pay US taxes.

So I wouldn't really consider citizens of US territories full US citizens.

So maybe it's more appropriate to say they aren't Americans, but they are US citizens.

But that is all semantics. My main point was the reason they don't have US representation is they don't have US taxation.

A Puerto Rican in California is entitled to all the benefits of US Citizenship whereas a Californian in Puerto Rico is not. Mostly these are related to welfare and elections. This would be the case for the Californian or Puerto Rican living anywhere in the world outside the US.

So a Californian that moves to, say, Germany can still vote by mail as though they were in California.

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You're mostly correct about the loss of welfare benefits, though. The only exception being that you do remain eligible for Social Security retirement, although some people may not consider that "welfare".

The District of Columbia has to pay US taxes without being allowed any US representation.

I'm not sure that's true - it appears to involve a legal distinction. I see many references to Algeria having been an "integral part of France" where other French territory wasn't. But I don't actually know what the terminology means. Anyway, I'd begin by looking to the legal status France tended to give to overseas territories, rather than the attitudes of the French, to explain this.

> Meanwhile I think a lot of Americans kinda-unconsiously barely even consider Hawaii and Alaska really parts of America, let alone the numerous non-state territories.

And this is a perfect case in point; Americans do consider Hawaii and Alaska to be really parts of America, because they have the legal status.

What there is, is a blindspot about territories. Just look at the flag: that there are parts of the United States which aren't States kinda doesn't compute.

or

https://www.thetruesize.com/#?borders=1~!MTU1OTU3NTE.MTE5NDg...

helps with convincing yourself.