French flag makes headway in international maritime safety rankings

Sécurité

Published on 16/07/2024

The high quality of the implementation of maritime safety standards on board ships flying the French flag was particularly recognised in 2024. On the one hand, the French flag improved its ranking in the Paris Memorandum of Understanding (Paris MoU), and on the other, France regained its qualification with the United States Coast Guard.

The French flag ranked 11th out of 71 by the Paris MoU

The Paris Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on Port State Control is an international agreement (signed in 1982) to which 27 States are parties. The MoU provides for the harmonisation of port state control (PSC) procedures in order to improve compliance with international maritime safety standards by ships calling at States Parties.

Each year, the Port State Control Committee (PSCC) updates the 3 lists published by the Paris MoU:
* white list: quality flags, whose ships are subject to a very low detention rate during PSC;

Grey list: flags with average performance;
black list: flags whose ships pose a risk to safety at sea and which may be banned from certain ports of call.

For the year 2024/2025, the French flag is moving up in the new ranking published by the Paris MoU: as in all previous years, it is on the white list, now in 11th place (reminder in 2023: 17th place).

The French pavilion regains Qualship 21 qualification

The United States Coast Guard’s (USCG) "Qualship 21" programme was launched in 2001 to encourage shipping companies, shipowners and national flag administrations to take greater care in the safety and quality of ship operations. The Port State Controls (PSC) carried out by the USCG give rise to an annual ranking of the number of PSCs that ships of each flag have undergone, the number of PSCs in which deficiencies were found, the detentions of ships for breaches of safety rules and the ratio of detentions to the number of port calls.

Until 2022, France will be on the list of flag administrations recognised for the excellence of their compliance with the "Qualship 21" programme. This excellence is determined on the basis of a threshold: only those flags whose number of ships held in port is less than 1.00% over the last 2 years are included on the list of flags eligible for the "Qualship 21" programme.

French-flagged ships made 104 calls in the United States between 2020 and 2022 (36 in 2020, 31 in 2021 and 37 in 2022). Of these calls, only 1 vessel exceeded the 1.00% threshold mentioned above, which meant that vessels flying the French flag were no longer eligible to obtain a certificate of compliance with the "Qualship 21" programme. As a reminder, this document reduces the frequency of PSCs and therefore saves time during port calls.

For the period 2024/2025, the French flag has regained its eligibility for the USGC’s "Qualship 21" programme.