France abandons Mercator, adopts Eckert IV to show continents by true size

France will phase out the Mercator projection in its diplomatic maps and switch to Eckert IV to better reflect continental sizes, aligning with a UN push toward equal-area projections like Equal Earth. The change is gradual (begun in 2021) and not a universal replacement, as Mercator remains used in some contexts and by platforms like Google Maps. At the UN, 164 countries backed a move toward equal-area maps (1 against, 6 abstentions), and while Eckert IV is similar to Equal Earth, it is not identical.