i am not sure for the number of words in french ... Few are used actually, but french has some levels, and i have to admit that when i am listening someone from the "Academie Française", i don't understand almost half of the words
but even for the common french, every words has 5 or more almost synonyms, which are different only by a gradation ...
i am not sure we can find that in english ... aprt from the french words used in that language (french was the language of the english nobility and scholars between the XI century and the invasion of England by "Guillaume le Normand" and the End of the Renaissance ... hehehe no wonder why the oldest novel known about King Arthur ("La Morte d'Arthu") was written by an english, in old french ... Even King Richard Coeur de Lion spoke only old french)
and i have french->french and english->english dictionnaries, and the french one is 3 times bigger
btw about the spatial station, you have forgotten to translate the part about the fact that there is the only place you can eat a Big Mac cleanly
Aegis nostalgic about the time when France was the light shining on the whole world (well, Asia was too far) ... ok that has never been true but ...
EDIT : no idea why i wrote that, but that seemed good to me while i was writing it