Canal Through France

How would it be possible for there to be a canal through France, connecting the Mediterranean to the Channel? What would be required, how early can this be done?
 
Think the OP was asking for a canal that could take ships in, not just barges.

Thats probably impossible. The longest ship canal i know of is the white sea baltic, at 227 km, the Canal des deux Mers is some 430 km, about twice as long.

The St Lawrence seaway is longer, but i dont know if the CANAL portion is anywhere near that long. I think not.

Ship canals are very expensive, and building them purely for prestige isnt going to happen.

The Panama canal cuts thousands and thousands of km, AND a really nasty sea passage out of manytrips. Its worth it. The Russians want to be able to get stuff from one coast to the other, and even those locks only take smallish ships.

You'd have to have the Straights of Gibraltar blocked to French vessels regularly for such an unprecedented canal to even be considered.
 

elkarlo

Banned
Thats probably impossible. The longest ship canal i know of is the white sea baltic, at 227 km, the Canal des deux Mers is some 430 km, about twice as long.

The St Lawrence seaway is longer, but i dont know if the CANAL portion is anywhere near that long. I think not.

Ship canals are very expensive, and building them purely for prestige isnt going to happen.

The Panama canal cuts thousands and thousands of km, AND a really nasty sea passage out of manytrips. Its worth it. The Russians want to be able to get stuff from one coast to the other, and even those locks only take smallish ships.

You'd have to have the Straights of Gibraltar blocked to French vessels regularly for such an unprecedented canal to even be considered.

Oh yeah, if it were possible the French would have done it. As it would have allowed them to transfer their fleet from the Atlantic to the Med, and be able to attack the British more effectively. Be like having a super sized Keil canal.
 

elkarlo

Banned
With current technology, it's at the very least unfeasible. Even if the technology existed, it would be cheaper just to offload cargo in Marsailles and ship it to Bordeaux via mag-lev or rail.


Really? I thought except for some serious geographical/engeneering troubles, that keeping cargo on ships was cheaper than unloading them, almost always
 
With current technology, it's at the very least unfeasible. Even if the technology existed, it would be cheaper just to offload cargo in Marsailles and ship it to Bordeaux via mag-lev or rail.

I don't know the technology has been around for about 50 years. A French equivilant of Operation Plowshare could be used to create it :)
 
Top