That's definitely not true in general, in fact my impression has always been the exact opposite. France, in particular, has a very large number of distinct mun

That's definitely not true in general, in fact my impression has always been the exact opposite. France, in particular, has a very large number of distinct municipalities (called communes). Paris proper includes only the very high-density central and historical core of the city. The inner ring suburbs still appear very urban. Compared to New York it would be like comparing the 5 boroughs = 1 city with the entire Paris region which probably contains dozens of distinct municipalities.