I guarantee you that absolutely no one in America is going to confuse Italy for “maybe Croatia?”. Absolutely everyone knows Italy is the one that looks like a high-heeled boot, and a very large percentage probably have never even heard of Croatia.
For some reasons a big part of Africa speaks French. There’s even a theory predicting that French could be the most spoken language in the World by the end of the century because of Africa’s population growth.
Most americans have no thoughts related to france owning northern africa. I know the joke is that algeria is independent now but most american never knew france ruled that region at all