French Navy force mix from 1890

If placed in charge of the French Navy in 1890, what fleet would you build with broadly historical funding?

The answer prioritizes long-range cruisers, battleships, torpedo boats, and submarines, with standardized ratios and defensive control of French waters and the Mediterranean.

The proposed French program starts from missions: colonial cruising, battle-line support, coastal control, Mediterranean defence, and the emerging submarine arm. Class standardization and a repeatable build ratio would use cruisers and torpedo boats to support each battleship instead of letting isolated capital ships dominate the plan. In the Mediterranean, French battleships could box in opponents in constrained waters instead of chasing them across the Atlantic.