France's naval budget had to cover divided coasts and an empire

Were most French ships designed chiefly for fighting in the Mediterranean?

Mediterranean operations were important, but France also needed colonial forces and a separate Atlantic and Channel fleet under a constrained naval budget.

French warship requirements extended beyond fighting in the Mediterranean. Colonial commitments added distant stations and demands on a limited fleet. At home, France needed forces for the Atlantic and Channel as well as the Mediterranean. The navy also competed for funding with an army facing Germany on the continent. Those demands help explain why a single geographic label cannot describe the fleet's work. The comparison with the United States and Canada draws attention to the difficulty of supporting separated naval coasts.