Liste des passagers List of Passengers
Paris: French Line [Linea Francesa], 1974. Presumed First Edition, First printing thus. Brochure. Format is approximately 5 inches by 9.5 inches, with the bulk of the content 4.5 inches in width. Most in French. 12 pages plus cover. Contains a page of the principal members of the crew, then the list of passengers, and then a list of French Line Principal Offices and Agents. One sheet of Omissions and Rectificatifs laid in. Decorated front cover. Title is on a blue strip that extends past 4.5 inches to 5 inches. The back is blank. Cover has some wear and soiling. SS France was a Compagnie Générale Transatlantique (CGT, or French Line) ocean liner, constructed by the Chantiers de l'Atlantique shipyard at Saint-Nazaire, France, and put into service in February 1962. At the time of her construction in 1960, the 316 m (1,037 ft) vessel was the longest passenger ship ever built, a record that remained unchallenged until the construction of the 345 m (1,132 ft) RMS Queen Mary 2 in 2004. France was later purchased by Norwegian Cruise Line (NCL) in 1979, renamed SS Norway and underwent significant modifications to refit her for cruising duties. She was scrapped in 2008. France was the French Line flagship from 1961 to 1974, combining regular five days/nights transatlantic crossings with occasional winter cruises, as well as two world circumnavigations. During her last years, to save fuel costs, crossings took six days/night. This passenger list is from the New York departure on 8 August 1974. She went out of service on 24 October 1974. Among the names on the passenger list are: Rockefeller, Paley, and Rothchild. France's maiden voyage to New York took place on 3 February 1962, with many of France's film stars and aristocracy aboard. On 14 December 1962, France carried the Mona Lisa from Le Havre to New York, where the painting was to embark on an American tour. She sailed the North Atlantic run between Le Havre and New York for thirteen years. By the beginning of the 1970s jet travel was by far more popular than ship travel, and the cost of fuel was ever increasing. France, which had always relied on subsidies from the French government, was forced to take advantage of these subsidies more and more. Using the ship's versatile design to its full potential, the CGT began to send France on winter cruises, which was off-season for the Atlantic trade. France's cruises were popular, and her first world cruise took place in 1972. Too large to traverse the Panama and Suez Canals, she was forced to sail around Cape Horn and the Cape of Good Hope. As the opening years of the decade progressed, the cruise market expanded, seeing the construction of smaller, purpose-built cruise ships which could also fit through the Panama Canal. Worse, in 1973 the Oil Crisis hit, and the price of oil went from US$3 to $12 per barrel. When the French government, at the end of the Trente Glorieuses, realized that keeping France running would necessitate an additional ten million dollars a year, it opted instead to subsidize the then in-development Concorde. Without this government money, the French Line could not operate, and with a press release issued in 1974 it was announced that France would be withdrawn from service on 25 October that year. At that, the crew decided to take matters into their own hands: an eastbound crossing on 6 September, her 202nd crossing, was delayed several hours while the crew met to decide whether to strike then and there, in New York, or six days later outside Le Havre. Le Havre won, and the ship was commandeered by a group of French trade unionists who anchored France in the entrance to the port, thereby blocking all incoming and outgoing traffic. The 1200 passengers aboard had to be ferried to shore on tenders, while approximately 800 of the crew remained aboard. The strikers demanded that the ship be allowed to continue to serve, along with a 35% wage increase for themselves. Their mission failed, and the night of the takeover proved to be the ship's last day of service for the CGT. It took over a month for the stand-off to end, and by 7 December 1974, the ship was moored at a distant quay in Le Havre, known colloquially as quai de l'oubli - the pier of the forgotten. By that time France had completed 377 crossings and 93 cruises (including two world cruises), carried a total of 588,024 passengers on trans-Atlantic crossings, and 113,862 passengers on cruises, and had sailed a total of 1,860,000 nautical miles. Condition: Good.
Keywords: Paquebot "France", Christian Pettre, Passenger List, French Line, Ocean Liner, Passenger Liner, Memorabilia, Collectibles
[Book #82655]
Price: $75.00