Concurrency between French private shipyards needed to decrease building costs of battleships according to the Dutch magazine Marineblad dated 1906-1907 no. 6

An item referred to the magazine La Marine française reporting that it was to avoid to lay down six battleships at the same time. This could only done by building 2 ships on navy yards but the other 4 by private shipyards The result was that the private firms would make gentlemen agreements causing very high building costs for the navy. The suggestion was to asked tenders for 2 ships to be built by the 4 private shipyards to create more concurrency ending in lower prices.