based upon Financial Times report
The Common Marke t expanding as it has France's trade with her E.E.C. partners to the detriment of trade overseas, has brought particular hardship to French shipping - in especially difficult straita even against. the background of the world shipping crisis. The president of both of France's leading shipping ccncerns, the semi-public Compagnie Generale Transatlantic (French line) and Chargeurs Reunis, the largest privately owned’ company, set forth in their reports for 1963 a pessimistic view of the French situation following what one of them calls "one of the worst years of French Shipping since the beginning of the crisis,"
Concerning the effect of the Common Market Chargeurs Rerris president Francis Fabre pointed out that France's trade with two such overseas count} ries as Brazil and Argentina, for example,which in 1953 represented 3.3% of her total foreimpn trade, came last year to only 1.6%. - Trade with "Black Africa" had experienced a similar proportional decline, Mr. Fabre also emphasised the continued decrease in the proportion of French seaborne f"eight being carried in vessels flying the French flag, M. Lanier, president of the French Line, emphasised the "dangerous imbalance" resulting from the high French shipping costs. Operating costs of foreign shipping lines, he said, even those of the highly industrialised countries, were more than 25% lower than those of France. M. Fabre said that during 1963 French shipping capacity dropped from 5,052,000 to 4,856,000 tons,