After the signing of the Washington Naval Treaty, France had the right to build new battleships to replace their old ones. In the 1920s, the design of a new ship class began. These ships could have been classified as battlecruisers or large cruisers in terms of their characteristics. The first project for a ship of this type was a cruiser with a displacement of 17,500 tons, armed with eight 305 mm guns in two quadruple-gun turrets.