French Line S.S. FRANCE (1962-1974)

France's final great liner and flagship of the famous French Line, the transatlantic express passenger liner FRANCE of 1962 was one of the more outstanding liners of the twentieth century, she was built too late entering service in 1962 when the final era of Atlantic Liners was already written on the wall.

She was also used on cruises from French ports as well as from New York, but all ended in a very sad register, in September 1974, when the crew took over the ship outside Le Havre going on strike in a final effort to try to avoid her withdrawl from service the following November as the operating subsidy from the French Government was moved from the FRANCE to the Concorde airliner project.

FRANCE crew later surrendered and the ship was moved to a lay up berth far away in Le Havre for a period of five years.

In 1979 Knut Kloster of Norwegian Caribbean Lines purchased the FRANCE in Le Havre, she was towed to Bremerhaven and rebuilt into the tropical mega cruise ship NORWAY, introduced in the Caribbean weekly cruises service out of Miami in 1980. But the NORWAY success story is another chapter in the famous FRANCE illustrious history, when she paved the way to the new race of big cruise ships...

As the final French Line flagship, the FRANCE was really outstanding, here are some brochures from her early days...

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