The Lyon was a class of battleship which was planned for the French

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 Navy, beginning in 1914. However, construction was halted and then cancelled due to the outbreak of World War I

World War I

World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

. No ship of the Lyon type was laid down.

Design

The design was an enlarged Normandie

Normandie class battleship

The Normandie-class dreadnought battleships were ordered for the French Navy before the First World War. They were named after provinces of France. These ships were never completed as battleships because the war stopped their construction...

 class battleship with an extra quadruple 340 mm turret. The French admiralty considered specifying a 380 mm (15 inch) gun to match contemporary foreign battleships but this could not be designed in time. The machinery would have been similar to the Normandie class with turbines for speed and more economical VTE engines for cruising.

Ships

Four ships were planned and orders were due to be placed in 1915. The orders were suspended on the outbreak of war in August 1914 and subsequently cancelled.

• Lyon, (AC de la Loire St Nazaire)
• Duquesne, (Arsenal de Brest)
• Lille (FC de la Meditarranee, La Seyne)
• Tourville (Arsenal de Lorient).