Grande Dame on Sale

From the moment when Mme. Charles de Gaulle smashed a bottle of champagne across her bow 14 years ago, the 66,000-gross-ton luxury liner France has reigned as the seductive grande dame of the seas. The 1,035-ft. liner, longest in the world, could carry as many as 2,044 passengers amidst the splendor of spacious staterooms and marbled public salons. Her first-class dining room, where white-tied captains spooned out gargantuan portions of caviar, was praised as "the best French restaurant in the world."

Speed, however, has proved to be a more marketable commodity than elegance. Never able to divert enough passengers from the jets, the France lost $24 million last year and could lose three times as much in 1974 because of soaring fuel costs. Thus, although the French attach great importance to symbols of national prestige, the Minister of Transport announced last week that the government could no longer "ignore the pressing economic problems of the day." The subsidies to the ship, which is two-thirds government-owned, will end this spring, and the $80 million France will be put up for sale--probably for $15 million. One possible customer is the Arab League, which would use the ship to transport pilgrims to Mecca. That would be a more dignified fate than that of the United States, now mothballed, and the Queen Elizabeth, destroyed by fire as she was about to be converted to a floating university in Hong Kong harbor.

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