La Motte-Picquet-class cruiser
The La Motte-Picquet class were a planned series of light cruisers for the French Navy and named after French admiral Toussaint-Guillaume Picquet de la Motte. Although designed in 1912, the scheduled construction of La Motte-Picquet was suspended due to the outbreak of World War I before the ships could be laid down. The design would be revived and used as the basis for the after the war. The name of the planned 1912 lead ship, would be reused by the . Design and development The design work on the La Motte-Picquet class has its origins in the early 1900s. France, had lagged behind neighbouring European powers such as the United Kingdom and the German Empire in naval construction. This was due to France's continued focus on building armoured cruisers. These ships were powerful, heavily armoured but costly, and increasingly obsolete (Britain and Germany having stopped building armoured cruisers several years earlier) compared to newer types of warships such as battlecruisers. By 1912, the deficit of newer modern classes of ships such as super-dreadnought-type battleships, and light cruisers in the French navy had become increasingly obvious. The French Minister of Marine issued an ambitious Statut Naval (Naval Law) on 30 March