Fraction Vs classification

Question

The initial examples don't seem to make sense. "The 3rd world" isn't "the 1/3 world". A 3rd person is very different from "a 1/3 person".
So these examples are highlighting differences rather than similarities?
Am I missing something?

Céline Pickard · Accepted Answer

Bonjour à tous,
Thank you for your comments! We discussed this with the rest of the French team and did a bit of research. Thanks to you, we updated the lesson to avoid any confusion.
Merci de vos excellentes contributions !
Bonne journée !

Anne Davies · Answer

I think you’re right - what those examples really show is that French uses fractional numbers in two situations where English uses ordinals. A third party follow first and second parties and Third World follows First and Second World - by extension, people sometimes refer to Fourth World. However, Third World can be seen as pejorative: to quote Wikipedia "The term "Third World" is increasingly perceived to be politically incorrect or outdated,"

Edit: just realised that this has been covered extensively in the discussion below. Always worth reading previous question and answers…