President Hollande Inaugurates Largest French-Flagged Boxship

The 18,000 TEU CMA CGM Bouganville, the largest container ship sailing under the French flag, was inaugurated by François Hollande, President of the French Republic, in the Port of Le Havre on Tuesday, October 6.

The 400-meter-long Bouganville was delivered by the Korean shipyard Samsung Heavy Industries on August 25, and has since been a part of the company’s French Asia Line (FAL) service.

This was the vessel’s first call at Le Havre within the FAL service, and the occasion was used for an official inauguration.Apart from its capacity to carry up to 200,000 tons of cargo between European, Middle Eastern and Asian markets, the CMA CGM Bouganville averages  37g of CO2/km for each container carried, an energy efficiency almost three times higher than recorded by the group’s fleet 10 years ago.The giant boxship was named after the French explorer Louis-Antoine de Bougainville, who was the Captain of the first French official world tour in the 18th century.