French Third Republic
The Marine Nationale was the fourth largest navy in the world when the war started, after the UK, US, and Japan. The MN's pre-war buildup was centered around the two tasks the French government had for it: to be able to tackle the Italian navy on equal or greater terms, and to blockade Germany and hunt down the surface raiders. As we now know, the French were confident that their army could hold the Germans at bay, and indeed, if you were to look at both OOBs on paper and compare them, then the obvious winner would've been France. However, hindsight shows that there were a large variety of factors that led to France's defeat, and one of them was the redirection of resources from the army and airforce to the navy.
Like Germany's planned Spähkreuzers, France also had large destroyers. When the French heavy DDs were patrolling with other Allied ships, the Allies referred to them as cruisers instead of destroyers due to their size. That makes it difficult to translate these ships to in-game units- are they high level destroyers, low level cruisers, or should a new unit be made for them?
Overall, the MN underwent a truly massive overhaul starting in 1932 in response to Weimar Germany's
Panzerschiffe, fielding the world's first "fast battleships". The French fleet was so advanced and powerful that the Royal Navy could not under any circumstances allow it to be used by Germany, leading to the the
Attack on Mers-el-Kebir by the UK against their former French allies.
The 1936 French Naval OOB, commissioned ships only:
1 Bearn-class CV
3 Bretagne-class BB
3 Courbet-class BB
1 Danton-class BB (scrapped in '37)
1 Algérie-class CA
4 Suffren-class CA
2 Duquesne-class CA
1 La Galissoniere-class CL
1 Émile Bertin-class CL
1 Jeanne d'Arc-class CL
3 Duguay-Trouin-class CL
6 Fantasque-class heavy DD
6 Vauquelin-class heavy DD
6 Aigle-class heavy DD
6 Guépard-class heavy DD
6 Chacal-class heavy DD
14 Adroit-class DD
12 Bourrasque-class DD
1 Surcouf-class SS
31 Redoutable-class SS
4 Circé-class SS
4 Sirène-class SS
Ships still under construction in '36; all were completed:
1 Dunkerque-class BC (officially a "fast battleship" F.BB, as opposed to a BB; whether it's a BB or BC in-game is up to your personal preference)
4 La Galissoniere-class CL
6 Minerve-class SS
Additional Ships that were finished by the time France surrendered:
2 Richelieu-class BB
1 Dunkerque-class BC
1 La Galissoniere-class CL
2 Mogador-class heavy DD
8 Le Hardi-class DD
Additional ships that were planned but not finished:
2 Joffre-class CV (construction started on 1 and captured, construction on the other never started)
4 Alsace-class BB (never built)
2 Richelieu-class BB (construction started & both captured by Germany)
3 De Grasse-class CL (construction on 1 started, Germany tried to convert it to a carrier)
4 Le Hardi-class DD
So, to sum that up, when the war started France had 1 CV, 8 BB, 2 BC, 7 CA, 11 CL, 32 heavy DD (about 6 or 7 in-game units), 34 DD (about 6 in-game units), and 46 submarines (about 4 or 5 in-game units). An additional 2 CV, 6 BB, 3 CL, and 4 DD were planned or under construction. In-game terms, the completed fleet would be 3 CV, 14 BB, 2 BC, 7 CA, 14 CL, 13 to 18 DD, and 4 or 5 SS. Because CA's aren't screens like they should be, that would be a total of 26 capital ships and 27 to 32 screens.
My info mostly came from Wikipedia, so it's entirely possible I'm missing something or have the wrong numbers. However, as usual, Wikipedia's
summary article for the French navy pre-WW2 is wrong and is contradicted by the articles for the individual ships. To make things worse, that false information has been spread around the 'net to the point where almost every other information site uses that particular Wikipedia article's bad info