Worth pointing out that next to the US, France is another empire with economically tied former colonies throughout Africa, Asia, and South America. They have a large installed base of nuclear power, nuclear ships, and nuclear weapons fed from uranium mines in those former colonies. And operate an aircraft carrier to project power internationally: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_aircraft_carrier_Charle... Despite…
I brought up the aircraft carrier in a conversation with a Frenchman while our daughters played in his apartment off the Champs-Élysées some months ago. He said: "Yes, it was very expensive and we don't take it anywhere." ; )
IIRC the operational plan involved having two of those as projection is much more limited (and notably cannot be continuous due to docked maintenance periods) with only one.