French Travel News-2010/2011 | SS France exhibition launched in Paris

Tuesday, March, 1st at 14.15 by Ashley Curtis


Parts of the old SS France cruise ship have been recreated for an exhibition in Paris, reports The Independent.

The ship, which was once the longest ocean liner in the world, was initially sold to a Saudi businessman in 1977 for £8m due to an economic crisis in France at the time. The ship was finally dismantled in 2007 and 2008 but scores of items from the vessel went on sale at auction in February 2009 and have been lovingly restored at a new event.

For the next eight months, tourists on their French holidays and general visitors to Paris can see some 860 objects which belonged to the France at the Musée de la Marine at Tocadéro. Items include 'squat, beige chairs which graced the first class lounge, to the six-feet high, neon letters spelling out the liner's name, which stood on the upper deck.'

The exhibition coincides with French businessman Didier Spade launching a feasibility study to build a France II.

'The ship was conceived as a showpiece for the industrial and artistic achievements of France,' said Mr Spade to The Independent. 'The new ship would also be a shop window for 21st century France.'

In a catalogue for the exhibition, French designer Philippe Starck notes the 'senseless' optimism that allowed the liner to be built in the first place.

'To construct an ocean liner in the Sixties was a poetic act, something heroically pointless,' he said. According to Starck, the sheer beauty of the ship achieved 'the rare feat of making every French person proud at the same time.'