THE FRENCH NAVY

Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 9, 11 July 1938, Page 9

THE FRENCH NAVY

NEW BUILDING PROGRAMME

Japan's refusal to accept naval limitations and increases in the Italian and German Navies will be met by new increases in the French fleet this year, says a Paris message to the "New York ■times." The French Government, according to a statement by M. Cesar Campinchi, Minister of the Navy, has authorised a supplementary building programme which will include two 35,000-ton capital ships, one cruiser of 8000. tons, seven submarines, and a number of lighter vessels. All of the ships will enter the service by December, 1942. In addition there is the Strasbourg, sister-ship of the 26,000-ton Dunkerque, which is now ready for trials. There are three 35,000-ton vessels now under construction. These will give France five ships in that class when the supplementary building programme is completed. | As compared with the Italian Navy, M. Campinchi said France will maintain a lead of 50,000 tons and of 120,000 tons over Germany. Without this extra construction the French Navy would have been 100,000 tons under Italy and equalled by the German Navy. PURPOSELY LOW. "When I submitted the navy budget," the Navy Minister said, "I made it purposely low in order to avoid, if possible, a naval armaments race. But I made the reservation that if others did not do likewise I would be forced to increase our programme. Outside events have obliged me to make use of that reservation."

M. Campinchi estimated that France's navy expenditures, including the ordinary budget and the extra building programme, would total 5,700,000,000 francs in 1938. This policy, he said, Would have to be continued resolutely next year to prevent France from being outdistanced by other Continental navies.

French shipyards, said the Navy Minister, were well prepared to carry out the programme. The part the French Navy recently p>yed in the Mediterranean and the Far East had raised the prestige of French sea power, he declared. He pointed out that the Strasbourg was the most modern vessel of her type afloat.

In declaring that France had forty first-class sumbarines, M. Campinchi said:—

'These are long-distance ocean-going craft, and they have proved their merits by recent cruises to America, the Far East, and Africa. With French interests and the empire so widely separated we cannot be content with ,a fleet of small submarines."