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What does “France métropolitaine” mean?

La France métropolitaine is the part of France that sits in Europe: the mainland plus Corsica. Everything else — Guadeloupe, Martinique, La Réunion, Guyane, Mayotte and the rest — is la France d’outre-mer. The phrase turns up in weather bulletins, in delivery terms and shipping costs, and in descriptions of accents, where un accent de France métropolitaine means a mainland one.

L’Hexagone is the narrower word for the continental shape alone, without Corsica. And le métro comes from the same adjective: it is a clipping of chemin de fer métropolitain, the “metropolitan railway” built for Paris — so the everyday word for the underground is a piece of the same vocabulary.