French turbines reveal the limits of industrial autonomy

French policy favored domestic production, including Rateau-Bretagne turbines, but the machinery record was more international than the rhetoric suggested. Parsons equipment and externally sourced components recur in the cruiser program. That mixture was not unusual for complex modern machinery, yet it mattered because French procurement was presented as domestically oriented. Dependence on foreign designs and components limited any claim that the program was nationally self-sufficient.