I am glad to start this site by undermining the French firm belief that the Mont Blanc (4810 meters) is in France. What you should know is that French tend to sell to the world the fact that the summit of the Europe's highest peak is in in France. Which is false!
In fact, the convention of March 7, 1861 between France and Sardinia recognizes that, the border between France and Italy passes exactly on the top of the Mont Blanc, and therefore makes it both French and Italian. Watershed analysis of modern topographic mapping not only places the main summit on the border, but also suggests that the border should follow a line northwards from the main summit towards Mont Maudit, leaving the south east ridge to Mont Blanc de Courmayeur wholly within Italy.
Even funnier, the geographical maps of the I.G.N (Institut geographique National de France) show the Mont Blanc peak as being wholly on French territory, which is untrue. Italians, on their side, are much more reliable and honest: on their maps the border passes exactly on the top of Mont Blanc.
So, did you know that Monsieur Mieulet lied when drawing his map in 1865?
As far as I have been able to see, people from the Club Alpin Français - CAF - refuse to accept the truth. Some months ago I was looking at a giant french relief map of the Alps in a bookstore and standing by me there was a pompous french mountain guide parading in a CAF t-shirt. When I noticed that the summit of the Mont Blanc was shown as being inside the french border (which was in contrast with what I had learned at school) I had a surprised expression. We started to talk about it and soon he jeered at me like if I was a poor stupid guy who did not know anything about mountains, borders and France's superiority over the rest of the world...
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