One would think that a metric country would adopt "k"/kilo as the indicator for thousands and "m"/mega for millions.
Still I suppose it's better than sussing out whether someone is British and using "long" billions.
(in most of the world, "billion" = 10 to the 9th power; in older British usage still sometime seen, "billion" = 10 to the 12th power, and 10^9 is "thousand million")
Well they're french, so M stands for Mille (one thousand). MM is just a thousand squared, and MMM is a thousand qubed.
Once you understand this system you might also understand why the long system makes more sense.
1000 = Mille M
1000 000 = Million MM
1000 000 000 = Milliard MM M
1000 000 000 000 = Billion MM MM
1000 000 000 000 000 = Billiard MM MM M
in the short system the billion (nine zeros) has nothing to do with two. while in the long system it represents double as many zeros as the million. a trillion has three times the Zeros. -ard suffix? add 3 zeros
As someone who used to speak decent French, you will never convince me that the language is rational with respect to numbers. The sometimes-decimal/sometimes-vigesimal thing still makes my head spin all these years later when I hear numbers being spoken in French.
Still I suppose it's better than sussing out whether someone is British and using "long" billions.
(in most of the world, "billion" = 10 to the 9th power; in older British usage still sometime seen, "billion" = 10 to the 12th power, and 10^9 is "thousand million")