DCN, the Direction des constructions navales (naval construction directorate), is a young company that is also very old. This apparent contradiction stems on the one hand from its legal status as a private company dating from just 2003 whereas on the other, and in a broader sense, it is the successor to a long French naval tradition which has forged the character of the company and encompasses some of its finest aspects.

A Great and Prestigious Heritage

First of all, DCN personnel feel a personal attachment to the company: many of them come from generations of people who worked in what were once called arsenals, some of which date back several centuries. This heritage leads to a strong attachment to the trades and the values of a whole society created from such a wealth of history. We should never forget that the value of a company comes above all from the quality of the people who work in it.

On another level, in the second half of the twentieth century DCN contributed to a major project which is the pride of our nation: the creation of the Force océanique stratégique (the ocean-going strategic force), whose main operational element is the SSBN, the missile-carrying submarine. Its deployment was an industrial and technological challenge comparable to that of Concorde or the TGV high-speed train, and it has given us a core of technical excellence and the capability to drive through major programmes.